Before Iggy Azalea There Was Teena Marie. What Is Black Music Anyway?

She might need a little Proactiv,
but who doesn't
 love a fresh faced girl?

These days its easy to turn on the radio and get confused about the voices you hear on the airwaves.  Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke.  Any one of these artist has the ability to make you think you are listening to black people music.  Yeah, I know.  Music has no color, so the whole conversation should be moot.  But it isn't.

For some reason, Iggy Azalea has to apologize for sounding like she's straight outa Compton when in fact she is a born and raised Australian with a significant accent.  Now, this brother will admit that I was shocked to hear her voice for the first time in interviews, but not to the extent that it was some extreme novelty.  I'm talkin' SquareBiz to yo' ass because Teena Marie told me to.  The Vanilla Child was more black to us than Sammy Davis Jr., and today she is as iconic in the black community as she is across the world.

The original pic that started this mess

Speaking of the world, I am a little disgusted with how late we Americans are when it comes to good music anyway.  Obviously "Good" is a very subjective thing, but the wave of studio DJ's like David Guetta or Calvin Harris who collaborate with pop stars is totally European.  Despite our decade long resistance towards electronic/house music (not you Chicago), its roots and branches have an evolution similar to rap music. House party music is America's creation yet we are late to the electronic dance party trying so hard to force feed American hip-hop upon every artist that allows 16 bars on their song.

Both house music and rap music are birthed out of R&B, aka.,black culture and Iggy had better recognize.  That's not exactly my position on the matter, but Azealia Banks, the British rap phenom who went in on Iggy long before Snoop compared her to a black albino brother just for taking a photo without her makeup seems to have similar feelings towards raps new princess.


In the grand scheme of things, Iggy needs to accept this bold departure from her original introduction to the world as par for the course.  When she gets big enough to have a VH1 roast like Snoop double G had once he blew all the way up, she better expect that makeup free photos will add some heat to that occasion. At the end of her career she can look back and ask herself if she would have rather been the roasted rap princess or another forgotten rap artist.

Snoop tries to clean up the mess from his Iggy rant.

That being said, Iggy is the recipient of more than a simple roasting; she is an unfortunate victim of that nigga shit. This black man can't quite understand blacks who demand respect but get upset with the greatest form of flattery.  Who cares if the Beastie Boys were making fun of black people and not actually rapping about anything in particular.  The Beastie's have a place in the pantheon of rap music.  They (and a Run DMC/ Aerosmith collab') allowed for rap to go mainstream.

Is Nicki Minaj way harder on the mic than Iggy?  She is to me, but some people are a little too afraid of black women owning their sexuality in such a way.  If Iggy makes Nicki more palatable to the racist and the chauvinist who don't realize that women have taken over the rap game, then she furthers a bigger cause.  Azealia Banks seemed to have a problem with Iggy copying the sexually explicit female rap thing that launched her unto the scene, but this is a formula that many female rappers will do in order to shock their way into an almost exclusively male world that insists upon a substantive diversion..

AZEALIA BANKS - 212 (explicit lyrics)

Rap has represented the voice of black culture for so long, we think we own it in some bizarre way; as if poetry should belong to England because Shakespeare was so dope. Black men with bedroom studios fight every day to make rap music remain the voice of the city people.  Male rappers have relinquished some control to black women who have carved a larger stake for themselves within all of black culture, but a white chick rappin'?...and ballin' at it?

That 's a bitter pill  to swallow and a painful one when its shoved down your throat like the ladies, including Iggy, continue to do in the hip-hop world.  I wish Iggy would have treated Snoop's stupidity like a roasting, but she's kinda new to this nigga shit (she's still perfecting her ebonics).  Every hip-hop artist, even Macklemore, serves the greater good of keeping the art form relevant.  Instead of honoring her for her role in the struggle, the haters do what they do.  Iggy may be able to sound blackish when she raps (is there any other way to rap?) but she will never quite understand the self-destructive compulsion that is called nigga shit.  That comes from a place beyond the understanding of most who suffer from this ailment.

Since they say you never have haters if your not doing anything, Iggy should be proud of her progression.  She's moved from Azealia Banks, who very few have heard of, to the original Snoop Double G.  Next up?  The White House....while you still can get an invite.

Denver Broncos Defense Making A Name With No Name Players

We spent a full season slobbering over the other worldly exploits of the Manning they call Peyton

When Manning is long gone..I'll be stuck on the Broncos

, but remain curious as to whether he will shake the label that keeps his little brother (and dad) in the debate as the greatest Manning quarterback of all time.  So long as that debate rages on, this Bronco fan is focusing on the team that I will love and support long after Peyton decides to poop or get off the pot. That being said, it is time that we share some of the same adoration saliva that we spilled on Manning and lather it all over our defense.

Ready for some drooling?

The Denver defense is proving to me that they are the best in the league.  Yeah, I said it!  The best in the league.

You need proof?  Well, I don't have the actual film review that play graders use when evaluating performance, but trust me when I tell you that I watch the game VERY closely.  My expertise may be in basketball, but my passion is the Broncos from as far back as I can remember.  In my own football humility, I sat quietly in the background over the years that the great "shut down" cornerbacks like Deion Sanders and Darrell Green ruled the roost. There became a great debate over who dictates QB pressure, the pass rush or the cover corners who buy time for the rush?  By the time the debate came to an exhausted conclusion, it became clear that no one had a definitive answer for why great pass rushers can create pressure or why great cover guys force QB's to only see half of the field.

Bradley Roby made the grade...and Kayvon Webster into a forgotten backup

This fly on that proverbial wall did not leave that conversation without taking notes about football, and for years I have been imagining the team that could do both.  Yeah, I know you think Seattle has that team, but they don't.  These guys are stout up front and mean in the secondary, but they can be burned in one-on-one coverage, and the film has forced every team towards that approach when playing the Seahawks (who fell to the Dallas Cowboys yesterday).

Do you remember a Bronco named Kayvon Webster?
 If you forgot about this guy, who played well for the Broncos in the Superbowl last year, it is because of another cat that we are getting to know, despite rarely getting to hear his name.  Bradley Roby could be exactly what we thought we drafted, and it might have already clicked in for this dominant, starting rookie.  If Roby is good than Chris Harris Jr. is great, and his stature among DB's in the league says that Denver already has a top 5 cornerback.  Aqib Talib and TJ Ward are footnotes in this paragraph because of the dominance of my first two examples, but I guarantee you that both New England  and Cleveland are sad when they witness what their former players are now doing in Denver.

Who is Quanterus Smith, and is he the reason Vonn Miller is back already?

The secondary will only get better, but they are not nearly as dominant as the front four is right now, so forget about those guys for now.

Demarcus Ware and Vonn Miller?!  Nuff said.  Terrance Knighton will go to the Pro Bowl because NO ONE can run against the Broncos.  He might take Derek Wolfe with him after yesterday because there was a definite Wolfe sighting in New York.

But forget about those guys too.

Who is this Smith dude that had to come into the game when Vonn Miller got his bell rung?  When I witnessed Vonn falling a try to stay up, I was curious about who would fill that spot, and if the Jets would instantly attack the Broncos with Miller missing.  The very next play after Vonn went  out resulted in a Demarcus Ware sack.  Ware got credit for the sack, but Mr. Smith created the pressure that forced it to happen.

By the time I Googled to find the name Quanterus Smith connected to #93 of the Broncos, I started to shake my head at the embarrassment of riches.  Quanterus Smith is the easiest explanation to why Vonn Miller got his game back so quickly, and why he tried to stay in the game when he got his bell rung.  This unknown dude can play and seems more powerful than Miller, which allows him to create pressure without compromising his lane assignment.  The New York Jets defense was rather impressive as well, but they seemed emboldened by the exploits of the best defensive coach in the game with Rex Ryan.  Any time you make it tough to score, you  indirectly make it easier for your offense to score by giving the ball back to them over and over again.  Sometimes good defenses will stifle scoring, other times it forces frenetic scoring patterns like it did in New York against the Jets.

What separates the good defenses from the great ones is the ability to take the ball away, and that has yet to become a trademark of Denver's D.  In New England, they teach this skill to a level that nearly neutralizes their defensive weaknesses, but gamblers always crap out eventually. If Denver never improves in this area, it will only matter if we continue to put the ball on the ground while trying to develop a solid run game.  The turnover battle does not really have to be won, it simply cannot be lost.

After 6 weeks of football, it might be a bit early to determine who the best defense in the league really is, but thus far, I will take the Denver defense over any of them for both current performance and immense upside.    The better your defense performs, the more likely any coach is to honor their efforts with a solid run game.  Since the Broncos finally got a 100+ yard rushing performance, Fox will have to finally honor to the new MVP of Denver and give them the respect, and consistent run support that great defenses demand.