Aural Dive: Jamal Dixon – ‘Africans on Warren Street’ EP (2020, Nylon Trax)

A timely release for the summer. And our times. Thanks to Jamal Dixon and his Africans on Warren Street EP, I’ve found pandemic living room club songs for my summer playlist. On the heels of his debut Brick City smasher, the New York area DJ and producer’s creative lion has been fiercely roaring in the […]

Turning from bad to worse: Trump wants US hospitals to send coronavirus cases and testing data directly to the White House, bypassing the CDC

Placing data in the hands of an erratic administration means more than politicizing science — it’s downright dangerous. Pardon the fucked-up language I’m using, but Team Trump’s demand for hospitals to send coronavirus data directly to the White House — while bypassing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a data collection point — […]

Physics, elections, and the President’s brain

File under “Smoke from the dome” Trump is experiencing an unprecedented perfect storm of conflicting vectors. Vector 1. Trump’s need to be reelected. Vector 2. Trump’s need to have the economy help him ride Vector 1. Vector 3. The increasingly compelling fact that wearing face masks while being present among large groups will reduce transmission […]

A reminder that police violence is a danger to communities’ mental health. And research supports that claim.

Premature mortality, mental trauma, depression, anxiety … Warning: embedded videos contain graphic violence. What if your innocent and non-threatening family member or neighbor was attacked by a police dog — like then-52-year old Desiree Collins was when she was taking out her household trash nearly three years ago? How do you think Collins should feel […]

Carry this thought with the George Floyd justice protests: income inequality is the highest in a half-century

The numbers suggest people demand change — regardless of what the stock market says. People need to connect relevant reasons to protest with their personal lives so they can hit the streets with conviction. In many cases, these reasons combine to drive even more energy into crowds. In the case of the George Floyd protests, […]

Roger Williams scores again with his Wednesday Wind Down Zone Soul Music podcast — May 27

Another example of my weirdness: I Shazam songs I already know. My guess is that I have trust issues with the app and want to catch it in a lie. Not sure. An Aha-you-busted moment came last night when Soul Music podcaster Roger Williams played Impact’s “Something to Rock Too” during his monthly last-Wednesday show […]

‘You ain’t Black’ Part 3: how Biden can fix the mess he’s made

It’s time for the Presidential hopeful to share and discuss his platform on race — and understand his place in the eyes of the Black electorate. Plus, a rare endorsement from this blog. About four years ago, but without a public endorsement, I categorized the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Presidential race as a question […]

Coronavirus: more proof Black and poor communities are designed for racist death (and politicians don’t care enough)

I’ll start by heading off the near-inevitable “What about White people” pushback whenever someone else mentions a unique and more intense version of hell that Black and Brown folks are experiencing. Sure — coronavirus doesn’t ask for skin color when it enters and removes your body from the planet. No one should argue that. But […]

Why we will regret Julian Assange’s arrest — and why we’ll have more regrets after he’s convicted

Many of you saw your long-term wishes granted: the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in London. Payback for Assange’s 2016 slow-motion DNC and Hillary hit, some of you will say. (Oh, and read this, and this. I can’t blame you for the vitriol, sort of. Most accounts describe Assange as unlikable — the kind […]