(Editors’ note: There have actually been a lot of significant sports stories, this week. The Seattle Seahawks cut Terrell Owens, perhaps ending a surefire Hall of Fame career in ignominy. Jerry Jones put Dez Bryant on punishment and told Dez that Dez had to spend Dez’ money on a baby sitter to baby-sit…Dez. Gabrielle Douglas told Oprah about enduring racist taunts at her training gym. And, the biggest news story of them all: we didn’t know this, but, according to Mario Chalmers, Mario Chalmers is one of the five best point guards in the NBA. Still, with all that going on, we decided to use the last no-NFL/CFB week of the year as an opportunity to kick it back-and-forth on a few non-sports issues.)
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VINCE: I just finished speeding through the fifth season of Showtime’s Californication, the other day. Don’t judge me. Just know that I have a very difficult time kicking shows to the curb after I’ve invested a couple of seasons in them. The show was always a farce, but now it’s tired farce. Two things made this past season bearable, though: Megan Good’s face and curves and Samurai Apocalypse.
RZA played Sam. He actually played Sam well. When he wasn’t hitting us with “bong, bong”s or sliding in a few Five Percenter references, he dropped lines like, “I been on some real gentleman s**t – f*****g ‘please,’ ‘thank you’ … when she sneez, I f*****g bless the b***h.” He said this with all the sincerity in the world.
(I’m going somewhere, here … it’s just taking me a while.)
Anyways, RZA’s a Hollywood player, now. In fact, as you know, Kha, RZA’s new film “The Man With The Iron Fists” premiers in November. RZA writes and directs the film (Eli Roth gets a co-writing credit). This isn’t some bush-league Master P flick or “Streets Is Watching.” This is a major studio film that also stars Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu. It’s legit – “$20 million-budget” legit.
(I’m still not there, yet, but I’m close.)
RZA also recorded a soundtrack for the flick. Naturally, right? It drops October 23; and it features some of his Wu brethren, the Black Keys, Wiz Khalifa … and Kanye West. RZA and Ye collaborated on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch The Throne. “White Dress” is the title of Ye’s joint on the soundtrack. Folks are speculating it’s about Kim Kardashian.
(We’re finally here.)
I’m sure you see where I’m going with this. I mean … another one, though, fam? His last joint, “Perfect Bitch,” was about Kim, too, right?
Selfishly, I don’t know if I’m ready (or ever will be, for that matter) for Kim K’s existence to start dominating the content of one of music’s few working virtuosos.
KHALID: Who knows how long Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, err, Kimye will last? If this is just a summer fling, it shouldn’t impact his music, too much. However, if he decides to wife her, well, then all bets are off.
As far as “Perfect Bitch” goes, everyone tells me it’s about her, so I just go along with it. The real question I have for you is: What are you going to do if this worse case scenario manifests? Ye might mess around and do an all-Kim album soon. Anything is on the table yo – anything. Are you going to stop consuming pop culture? At this point you might just have to take my approach to the Kardashian movement (what, you didn’t know? It’s no doubt a movement. Don’t shake your head like it’s not.) and keep it pushing anytime they’re in the news.
There used to be a time when I avoided watching anything about them. Not because their brand of frivolity is any different from any other random reality TV celebs, but because I was not going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I rebelled against all those sort of shows and threw the Kardashians in with the rest. That worked in the late ‘00s but not now. They’ve become super ubiquitous. For black people, especially. Evidently the community is so thirsty for famous non-white folks that we’ll accept anyone with a little color in their skin that happens to just “date black.” We’ve adopted them. They are official now. You don’t believe me? Ask 10 black girls that you know. If you come back with anything less than seven saying, “yeah, I watch it,” then they lied to you. So what do I do? I don’t sweat it. I’ve seen a couple of episodes of their show (it wasn’t my idea, but I can’t front like I was chained to the TV or something). Yeah it’s silly, but it’s mostly harmless escapism. As long as they don’t say or do anything really out of bounds, I can care less. But this is probably the last time I write about them.
VINCE: Wow. That was way more Kardashian talk than I expected. Yes, please make that the last time you devote that many words to them. I’m totally not hip to your suggested phenomenon of black women adopting the Kardashians en masse, but we need to refocus. This is more about Kanye, for me. 808s and Heartbreak was an album centered on a relationship. Kanye definitely has the depth to make dope music about love, falling in love, love lost – all that. I just wonder if someone rumored to be as vapid as Kim K can be a virtuoso’s muse. I guess I’m just a concerned admirer of Ye’s music hoping that this love thing doesn’t dupe him into a creative rut.
Speaking of reality TV, however, I take it you won’t be DVR’ing Good Morning America for Evelyn Lozada’s first post-head butt interview. Not your thing, huh? I’m with you. What about a Eddie Murphy and a Beverly Hills Cop TV show, though? Huh? Is it Season Pass-worthy? No? What about Saturday Night Live, Eddie’s former launching pad? Still a fan? The new season starts September 15 and Frank Ocean is the musical guest. He’s performing at the MTV Video Music Awards next month, too. This is all well deserved. Have you heard an album better than Channel Orange, this year?
KHALID: I actually didn’t care for 808s and Heartbreaks (only liked two songs on that joint), so how much worse can a Kim K inspired album be?
As far as Kanye getting into a creative rut, it happens to the best of them. After Cruel Summer drops in a few weeks, we can gather whether or not we’ve already seen Kanye’s best.
I saw the stuff about a Beverly Hills Cop show and, yes, it sparks my interest. This is of course, assuming, that Murphy is still funny. When’s the last time a project of his made you laugh? Even a little bit? I’ll give it a shot, but probably just one shot.
I still watch SNL, but never regularly. I might easily miss the season premiere, in fact, I’m sure I will. Losing Kristen Wiig takes a little bit of the interest away for me. And Life is Good is still my favorite album of the year. Odds are, that’s not going to change.
VINCE: Life Is Good, huh? Well, you said it was your “favorite,” so I guess I can’t argue with that. You’re favorite is you’re favorite. That album hasn’t aged well in the weeks since its release, but I’ll digress.
I found this news story interesting. Apparently Wyclef Jean backed out of a scheduled performance at the Republican National Convention. Clef’s folks are reportedly claiming that there was some subterfuge thrown their way.
Clef’s spokesperson Joe Mignon told HatianBeatz.com: "We were originally contacted by the [Got Your 6] organization, but not the GOP. As soon as we found out that the event was around the Republican Convention, we pulled out."
I’m not going to ask any leading questions, Kha. Just fill the silence…
KHALID: Strictly as a public relations move, it makes sense; but I wonder what the real story entails. A lot of people were upset about Wyclef being involved with the RNC, but I wasn’t one of them. We aren’t all alike, so we can’t all think a like. I know the GOP is full of you know what, but I was willing to give ‘Clef the benefit of the doubt.
As far as you shunning Life Is Good, I don’t know what to say. You were co-signing it hardbody when it came out and now you’re over it? Pffttt. To each his own. I’m about to play it right now actually.
