UNCLE RUSH

I saw this photo of this guy proudly poised like a dancer.

His name is Russell Simmons. He was chatting with Belinda Luscombe, a Time Magazine reporter. who interviews important people with 10 questions. Simmons looked like a kid. I hadn't heard of him, but right off the bat, I got a sense that this guy was self confident.

Belinda asked, "Aren’t you worried that your book on meditation, 'Success Through Stillness,'  might make people think you’re too soft to be a rap entrepreneur?"

(Recently, some of my personal friends are into meditation and asking me if I meditate, and since I do, his reply interested me.)

Russell said, "I’ve been meditating for 20 years. I’ve been practicing yoga for 20 years. I’ve been writing books on happiness for 10 years. I think everybody in the hip-hop community knows Uncle Rush as a person who promotes well-being. I’m not at all worried, and meditating is something I want the world to do. I want to take in the hood and meditate. I want to go to Chicago and get Rahm Emanuel and put meditation in the schools in Chicago."

B asked the question that I wanted to ask, "Is Uncle Rush your nickname because you’re always in a hurry?"

RS: "Yeah, and Rush also was a particular brand of angel dust. But now I’m a monk. I don’t smoke or drink or eat animals or wear any animal product. About 20 years ago, I started to find meditation in the morning to be a lot more satisfying than drinking at night."

(I Googled, learning that Uncle Rush was 56-years-old, in the music business, clothing, and fashion business, with a net-worth of approximately $340  million. I glued my mind to hearing how meditation helped him succeed. I think of my dancing as meditating because it's an intense, unbreakable focus on doing steps I have danced every day for many years, -- it gives me joy, energy, and sometimes courage.)

B:  How would you respond to people who say, it’s fine for you to meditate – your money is making money – but the rest of us have to make a living?

RS: I run a fashion company, "Argyle Culture." I run three digital companies: "All Def Digital," "Narrative" and "GlobalGrind.com." I run four charities. I’m able to do a lot because I meditate. Meditation helped me to be more expansive in my abilities, but it also allowed me freedom to not carry the anxiety and weight that people associate with worldly pursuits.

B:: Do you have a dream disciple, someone you’d love to win over?

RS: Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber. We had a big initiative to end the drug laws the way they are today. Every celebrity you could think of signed our letter, all the civil organizations. We had a rally. Nobody did sh-t [in response]. Justin Bieber tweeted it out --  “Ding-aling, Attorney General on the line.”

B: Is it drug laws or the prevalence of drugs that’s an issue?

RS: The drug laws took innocent diseased people, locked them up, educated them in criminal behavior and dumped them back in the hood without a chance for employment or any opportunity to be good parts of society. That’s why I occupied [Wall Street]. That’s why I slept in the park. Only once. I live across the street.

B teased him about being one of the 1%  R said he was 0.5%. "The ones who were who are the 0.01% are the dumb motherf-ckers. They should be happy to pay more taxes."

(His humor was wry, ultra honest, and every time he cussed, it was bleeped.)

B asked, What do you think of the new trend of tolerance rap, like Macklemore and Lecrae?

RS: That’s not new.

(to me it was a new name, a group I'd never heard of)

B: Are you suggesting rap has never been homophobic?

RS: I’d say that society has always been homophobic. I would not say rap was more homophobic than Congress. F-ck no. Or the city council or the preachers. I like Macklemore’s record; I heard it while in shavasana.

(He was referring to a Yoga pose, I wondered which pose he meant).

B: Is the music business over?

R.S:  No, I think the doors are wide open, and whatever I’ve done can be done easily by someone who has the drive and interest. It’s easier to be in the record business now. You need a hot-ass record – that’s it. Nobody can stop you.

B   Is that why you’re back in the entertainment business?

R.S.  "All Def Digital" is young writers, directors, poets, comedians, music artists. There’s a bunch of black people who deserve a break. Hollywood’s diversity is –  did you know that Kerry Washington is the first black girl lead in a show like that since Diahann Carroll in Julia?

B: Is Hollywood more segregated than other industries?

R.S: More than anything I’ve ever seen. I’m not mad at Hollywood, by the way. They have good intentions, they’re sweet people, they’re liberal–they’re just less integrated than Jerry Springer.

Here's Russell practicing Yoga on the beach.

The video, excerpts of this conversation, will give you a sense of who this man is. I like him -- the kid is definitely a grownup, an unstoppable mover, shaker, and doer.



  

WANGECHI MUTU

I saw a picture of a painting that I liked. Then, this picture of Wangechi Mutu, an artist and sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Right off the bat, a biography appeared and said, "She is considered by many critics to be one of the most important contemporary African artists of recent years. Her art works have. achieved considerable global acclaim."

I started looking at photos of different things she created, and a video. There were lots of things to click. No doubt about it, this artist's credits tell you not only where she's exhibited, but loud and clear, say that the high and mighty folks in the art world are very impressed with her.

I wanted to see her art, not read her life history, so I skimmed. Age 41, born in Kenya, she sensed (she herself explained this in one of the videos) that before she was in her teens, she knew that she was going to be an artist, and she focused on becoming an artist in grade school -- it was a goal as she pursued her education.

It reminded me of me, (and what kids with show biz dreams do). This gal created an instrument -- body and soul -- that could do whatever she might want it to do -- draw, paint, sculpt, build, construct, photograph, record, and film. How did she know what to do? She grabbed whatever she saw that interested her -- that's what Wangechi did -- and she herself says, that's what she still does.

In her late teens she got herself educated in the World College in Wales. In her early twenties, she moved to New York City, where she studied at the New School for Social Research, Cooper Union, and Yale.

And she created things -- paintings, collages, sculptures, photos, music, recordings, and videos.

Her work speaks to me -- images floating on reality, juxtaposition of dream-like visions and beautiful rendered, detailed,  exquisitely detailed reality.

What Wangechi Mutu  says about herself as we look at her work, is a trip into another America -- our world seen by a woman with eyes that see truth, beauty, evil, life and death in her own, very special, different way.

The vision of the artist here is especially interesting -- think of this nine minute video as a visit to a museum of art, where you can spend a little or as much time with Wangechi as you feel like spending.

(VIDEO) CULLUM SINGS HIS "DOGGY" SONG

Emily, praising and raving about John's singing, wants to know when and how John developed his baritone voice.

John reveals what he did at age 9, because he loved singing and was too shy to perform a song in front of a roomful of relatives.

When Lerner's assistant discovered him, and Alan Lerner asked him to sing --  and he didn't sing well -- he was hired as understudy, standby for Richard Burton and Roddy McDowall. That inspired John to start studying with Seymour Osborne, the renown theatrical vocal coach whom Alan recommended. 

MICROAGGRESSION

When you ask a simple, harmless question like this one, be careful, folks -- it is "MICROAGGRESSION."

 Huh?

Even my "Huh" can be a microaggression. I didn't  realize that "huh?" in a surprised tone, expresses prejudice against  what is now important to many, many people.

The term was coined by Chester M. Pierce in 1970; specifics were detailed by Mary Rowe in 1973 in her book in which she detailed various microaggressions -- references to sex, gender, and race. People paid attention for a while, but back then we were getting more and more involved with being "Politically Correct."  

Now microaggression in the news -- a hot college-kid thing, that has also caught on with students' older-wiser friends, and inspired their peers -- professors, teachers, lecturers -- to examine these kinds of racist murmurs as a trend that reflects national guilt.

I think it's a good trend, a sensible trend -- it's not turning back the clock to our previous years of fretful awareness of the deep prejudice instilled in us from the beginning of our school days, (from even earlier).

Our chatty friendly remarks -- how we observe hair, skin color, facial and body features -- need to be examined. These subtle, friendly sounding, often automatic, exchanges -- for instance, put-downs of blacks by offenders -- play a role in unfairness in the legal system as they can influence the decisions of juries, and hey-- microaggesioning is what the Speaker of the House and his gang are doing daily, affecting how people view the successes or failures of the White House.

Is  microagreession something YOU and I should deal with?  Guys, we have learned before to keep track of anything that is a big deal for kids. I say focus on this -- learn all you can about microaggression -- dance it, sing it, practice it every day.