This week's open threads will highlight how ska at one time was a black music genre derived from reggae and mento. Mento is a style of Jamaican folk music that predates and has greatly influenced ska and reggae music. Mento typically features acoustic instruments, such as acoustic guitar, banjo, hand drums, and the rhumba box — a large mbira in the shape of a box that … [Read more...] about Monday Open Thread: The History of Blacks and SKA music
Entertainment
Sunday Musical Open Thread: MC Lyte’s in da House!
MC Lyte (born Lana Michelle Moorer; October 11, 1970) is an American rapper who first gained fame in the late 1980s, becoming the first solo female rapper to release a full album with 1988's critically acclaimed Lyte as a Rock. She has long been considered one of hip-hop's pioneer feminists. … [Read more...] about Sunday Musical Open Thread: MC Lyte’s in da House!
Saturday Open Thread: The Filmography of Spike Lee
Happy Saturday POU! We finish up the week with the last 5 films written and directed by Spike Lee before the upcoming release of his latest film BlackKKKlansman. Bamboozled is a 2000 satirical comedy-drama film written and directed by Spike Lee about a modern televised minstrel show featuring black actors donning blackface makeup and the resulting violent fallout from … [Read more...] about Saturday Open Thread: The Filmography of Spike Lee
Friday Open Thread: The Filmography of Spike Lee
Happy Friday POU! We continue our look at films written and directed by Spike Lee. Crooklyn is a 1994 semi-autobiographical film co-written and directed by Spike Lee. Lee and his siblings Cinque Lee and Joie Lee co-wrote this nostalgic but unglamorized look at a family growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn in the 1970s, inspired by their own … [Read more...] about Friday Open Thread: The Filmography of Spike Lee
Wednesday Open Thread: The Filmography of Spike Lee
Good Morning POU! We continue to look at the movies written and directed by Spike Lee. (Goodness, Denzel was so damn fine in this movie) Mo' Better Blues is a 1990 musical drama film starring Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, and Spike Lee. It follows a period in the life of fictional jazz trumpeter Bleek Gilliam (played by Washington) as a series of bad decisions … [Read more...] about Wednesday Open Thread: The Filmography of Spike Lee