Skin memory

These three psychedelic and ghostly albums, in no order of preference occupy, their phantasmatic place in my skin since the early days. Those who know me know why. Its the piano, its the bass, its the voices, the melodies. They carry some of the most harmonically exquisitely pieces of proto afro-darkness ever committed to Brazilian popular music. That is, MPB that is truly non-caetanica.

These three psychedelic and ghostly albums, in no order of preference occupy their phantasmatic place in my chest since the early days. Those who know me know why.

They carry some of the most exquisite pieces of Brazilian popular music ever committed to record.   Sao as linhas de baixo, as vozes, as harmonias, as melodias, a percussao, a escuridao, os rhodes, as orquestraçoes, os convidados, as letras.

They know its not love.

"To distance oneself professionally through critique, is this not the most active consent to privatize the social individual? The Undercommons might by contrast be understood as wary of critique, wary of it and at the same time dedicated to the collectivity of its future, the collectivity that may come to be its future. The Undercommons try to escape from critique and its degradation as university-conscious and self -consciousness about university consciousness, as Adrian Piper say, into the external world. [ ] The sovereign army of academic antihumanism will pursue this negative community, seeking to conscript it, needing to conscript it. But as seductive as this critique may be, in the Undercommons they know it is not love.

Between the fiat of the ends and the ethics of new beginnings, the Undercommons abide, and some find comfort in this. Comfort for the emigrants from conscription, not to be ready for humanity and who must endure the return of humanity nonetheless, as it may be endured by those who will or must endure it, as certainly those of the Undercommons endure it, always in the break, always the supplement of the general intellect and its source. When the critical academic who lives by fiat (of others) gets no answer, no commitment from the Undercommons, will then certainly the conclusion will come: they are not practical, not serious about change, not rigorous, not productive."

FRED MOTEN, THE UNDERCOMMONS: FUGITIVE PLANNING & BLACK STUDY

On life and death, blackness and nothingness

Not just the absence, the refusal of a standpoint.
Existence without standing from no standpoint.


What is it to think without a standing point.

"This is to say that what I do assert, not against, I think, but certainly in apposition to Afro pessimism, as it is, at least at one point, distilled in Sexton’s work, is not what he calls one of that project’s most polemical dimensions, “namely, that black life is not social, or rather that black life is lived in social death” (Sexton 2011b: 28). 

What I assert is this: that black life—which is as surely to say life as black thought is to say —is irreducibly social; that,
moreover, black life is lived in political death or that it is lived, if you will, in the burial ground of the subject by those who, insofar as they are not subjects, are also not, in the interminable (as opposed to the last) analysis,“death-bound,” as Abdul JanMohamed (2005) would say."

Not just the absence, the refusal of a standpoint.
Existence without standing from no standpoint.

What is it to think without a standing point.

FRED MOTEN - in BLACKNESS AND NOTHINGNESS

TO AFFIRM IN THE INTEREST OF NEGATION WHAT NOTHING IS.

Acúmulo Nulo

Acúmulo Nulo


Cade seu brilho? A escola de arte tirou tudo?

Ficou seca no brilho, opaca

Igual as outras

Casajeiras

Que nunca tiveram

Murchadas

Semi-intelectualizadas

Pálidas

Brancas

E curadoras nao curandeiras

Opressivas mas oprimidas

Em busca de um novo “black”

Don’t get un-black como elas.

O sapato é tenso

O cabelo ta tenso

A linguagem?

Negligente

Privatizada, a mula resfolega

Enato respira

1 2 3

Todo mundo sabe que nao tem amor ali

O underground sempre soube.

Ha amor à lista, o amor à ela não é amor.

A moralista

No gole do engole

Do terraço

Neo-liberal

Monumental na cidade

De beiços e bolsas

Nao sobrou nada pra ti

Oh cabloca cabocla,

Desembestai

Desembesta.

Re connecta na conjunção

E embesta, de vez.

Esquece a cara de pergunta

Gole do engole

Seco

Morto

Sorrisal forçado

Arado

Em acúmulo 

De um brado

Nulo.

T W O W O R D S F U L L S T O P we shall overcome

We in the streets player, get your mail

It's only two places you'll end up, either dead or in jail
Still nowhere to go, still nowhere to go
Now throw ya hands up bustless, busters, boosters, hoes
Everybody, fuck that
Still nowhere to go, sill nowhere to go

Two words, United States, no love, no brakes
Low brow, high stakes, crack smoke, black folks
Big Macs, fat folks, ecstasy capsules
Presidential scandals, everybody move!
Two words, Mos Def, K West, hot shit
Calm down, get back, ghetto people, got this
Game ball, lock shit, dump off, cock shit
We won't stop shit, everybody move!
Two words, BK , NY, Bed-Stuy
Two hawks, too hungry, too many, that's why
These streets know game, can't ball, don't play
Every traffic, one lane, everybody move!
Two words, Mos Def, black jack, hot shit
Calm down, get back, ghetto people, got this
Game point lock, long pump cocked
We won't stop, everybody move!

Now throw ya hands up bustless, busters (Throw your hands up high)
Boostas, hoes, everybody, fuck that (oh)
Still nowhere to go, still nowhere to go (oh)

And keep ya hands up bustless, busters (Till they reach the sky)
Boostas, hoes, everybody, fuck that (oh)
Still nowhere to go, still nowhere to go (oh)

Hey yo, two words, Chi town, South side, world wide
Cause I, rep that, till I, fucking die
One neck, two chains, one waist, two gats
One wall, twenty plaques, dudes say, "Gimme that"
I am limelight, Blueprint, 5 Mics
Go get his rhyme like, should of been signed twice
Most imitated, Grammy nominated
Hotel accommodated, cheerleader, prom dated
Barbershop, player hated, mom and pop, bootlegged it
Felt like it rained till the roof caved in
Two words, Chi town, raised me, crazy
So I live by two words, "Fuck you, pay me"
Screaming, Jesus save me
You know how the game be
I can't let em change me
Cause on Judgment Day, you gon' blame me
Look God, it's the same me
I (Throw) basically know now (Your) we could (Up) racially profile (High)
Cuffed up and hosed down, pimped up and hoe down (oh)
Plus I got a whole city to hold down (oh)
From the bottom to the top
So only place to go down

And keep ya hands up bustless, busters (Till they reach the sky)
Boostas, hoes, everybody, fuck that (oh)
Still nowhere to go, still nowhere to go (oh)

Two words, Freeway, two letters, A-R
Turn y'all rap niggas into two words, fast runners
Like Jackie Jurner, you better sleep with your burner
The heat skeet, blow a reef through ya car
My God, two words, no guns, break arms
Break necks, break backs, Steven Segul
Free young bars, fresh men of the Roc
Left the beef in the pot Jay sent for his dogs
And broads, forget ya squad, let em find for yourself
Have you screaming out four words "Send for the Lord"
Two words, Freeway's slightly retarded
Fuck around, throw a clip in ya artist, leave with his broad

Throw (red) Your (white) hands (blue) Up (black)
Throw (calm) Your (down) hands (move) Up (back)
Throw (motherfuckers) your (asking) hands (who is) up (that)
Throw (you know) your (it's the) hands (almighty) up (Black Jack)
Throw (Mos) your (Def) hands (K) up (West)
Throw (there go) your (people) hands (get this) up (shit off ya chest)
Throw (north) your (to the south) hands (to the east) up (to the west)
Throw (we got) your (that concert) hands (it was no) up (contest)
High! (an show it to 'em like)

Welcome to Heatbreak

Kanye West

My friend showed me pictures of his kids
And all I could show him was pictures of my cribs
He said his daughter got a brand new report card (card)
And all I got was a brand new sports car
Uh

And my head keeps spinning
Can't stop having these visions
I gotta get wit' it
Oh ho, oh ho, oh ho
And my head keeps spinning
I can't stop having these visions
I gotta get wit' it
Oh ho, oh ho, oh ho

Dad cracked a joke all the kids laugh
But I couldn't hear em all the way in first class
Chased the good life my whole life long
Look back on my life and my life gone
Where did I go wrong?

And my head keeps spinning
Can't stop having these visions
I gotta get wit' it
Oh ho, oh ho, oh ho
And my head keeps spinning
I can't stop having these visions
I gotta get wit' it
Oh ho, oh ho, oh ho

I seen it, I seen it before
I seen it, I seen it before
I've seen it, I've seen it before
I seen it, I seen it before

My god sister gettin' married by the lake
But I couldn't figure out who I want to take
Bad enough that I showed up late
I had to leave 'fore they even cut the cake
Welcome to Heartbreak

And my head keeps spinning
Can't stop having these visions
I gotta get wit' it
Oh ho, oh ho, oh ho
And my head keeps spinning
I can't stop having these visions
I gotta get wit' it
Oh ho, oh ho, oh ho

Oh ho
Oh ho
Oh ho

And I can't, and I can't stop
No, no I can't stop
No, no, no, no I can't stop
No, no, no, no I can't stop
Can't stop, I can't stop, I can't stop
No, no, no, no
No, no, no, no
No, no, no, no, no, no
No, no I can't stop

Can't stop having these visions
I gotta get wit it
Oh ho, oh ho, oh ho
Oh ho
Oh oh ho