Not-So Social Media, Part Three: The Reina "Situation"

Greetings, all. (Yeah, we're bringing that back)

Now that the re-re-re-re-RE-introduction is out the way, let us begin.

It's 2014. Well, almost. And, to begin my 2013 close-out, I took a sabbatical from social media in mid-November, to clear my head and buckle down for grad school finals. I also wanted to, you know, avoid going through parts one and two of this series. I actually met people, talked with friends on the phone and in person. And, it felt good. When I returned, so-called "Black" Twitter was going apeshit for two things. First, this Vine (the author of which I attempted to get an interview with to figure out the MO, and was probably declined/ignored) posted by a supposed UMD student:

The second was Kanye West and his perceived looniness, but let's take things one step at a time here (I'll talk about Kanye in my This Week in Hip-Hop post on Arteest's blog). 

Now, this whole "Reyna/Reina at UMD" thing hit a fever pitch for a minute after she popped up (and even more so after this Vine). I'm talking people that usually would give two types of fucks (that's none and no) about some random UMD chick started thirsting for her, hitting her up, planning to fuck her lifeless corpse (that was an actual tweet from some rapper dude), and so on. It was like Becca Martinson--if Becca Martinson was a cute biracial chick with a "DAYUMMM!" booty that squeezed some other decent-looking girl's tit while making out on Vine. Now, we know that she's a human being and real (we still don't know if UMD is a set thing; we have no true confirmation other than the friend saying it). But you've kind of got to wonder what's the motive, the point? 

������ RT @Hunniebooty: Y'all dumb ass motherfuckers at UMD who don't think @La_reinaaaaaa is real... pic.twitter.com/QMcCrNKczq
— R. Messi (@La_reinaaaaaa) November 25, 2013

As I've said, I applaud her for getting people talking about a seemingly innocuous UMD freshman. It's viral marketing at its finest. She's obviously smart, because she gives people just enough to "tide them over" until she returns, kind of like a sexualized "lonelygirl15" (Remember her?). She'll post things, then potentially retweet a response here or there, but she tends to avoid conversing with people. Now, if Reina--or whoever's behind "Reina" (if you're one of those types) turns this into some crazy loot, then hu-fucking-zzah! Seriously, because it is incredibly hard to go viral and then transition viral buzz into real fame. It's even harder to create, if "Reina" is actually an actor playing a fictitious person, a lonelygirl15-like persona in 2013 versus 2006.

I do, to a degree, find it hard to believe that she's just posting photos of herself just for shits and giggles, especially in this hyper-invasive day and age.

But, what will this sort of thing teach us? Simply put, sex sells, and as much as we attempt to run away from sexualized imagery and sex itself, it's still there. So what shall we do about that? Embrace it. That's not to say "hey guys, let's all get drunk and fuck everyone and everything." Never that. I mean, as people, we know that sex exists and that it is prominent in our society. Instead of "slut-shaming" individuals like Reina, we can use these images to talk about our bodies, our feelings, our society as a whole. Hell, that may be what she's trying to do through the Vine and photos. That's probably in addition to, you know, not giving any sort of fuck and getting her jollies jollied. We can also be more open about sex and stop placing such a stigma on it. It's a natural thing. Sometimes, it even happens outside of marriage. Our Puritanically-based society makes for sheer fuckery when it comes to sex, which is sheer irony considering the amount of (often misrepresented) sex on our televisions, radios, and so on. But, I'll get off my soapbox so you can go back to the Vine and jack your little two-inched schlong off.

Peace and Love,
SOTB.

Speed on the Beat reviews: Songs For... by...Speed on the Beat?!

(OK, so this is something that often doesn't happen--an artist with the balls to openly review his own work with the same scrutiny as he does others. So, let's get into it. This is to be taken seriously and somewhat tongue-in-cheekily as well)

Speed on the Beat

"No-Fi King" Speed on the Beat's second album Songs For... picks up exactly where Speed's first effort RAQUEL RELOADED left off. After a somewhat curious choice of an intro--Speed, his son, and his son's mother share a moment in their lives--we're taken to Speed rethinking his decision to kill himself. What unfolds on the first actual track of the album, "The Vent Songs For...)," both treads familiar territory and sheds new light on a situation. When Speed says lines such as "I preached false truths, I tried to make myself look better than/My fellow man, just because I'm ashamed of what lied within," you hear Speed's pain and anguish, but you also see a man who's been through this time and time again. He's a guy who's clearly been through a lot of shit over the past year or two. The escalating beat in this song sets a tone of triumph, but a melancholy one.


Speed is showing listeners that, while there's hope, the hope is steeped in, to borrow one of Speed's S4 song titles, "Optimistic Despair."

For every moment where it seems that Speed is getting it together in the first half of the album (example: his boisterous claims on "Kings," featuring long-time DAR collaborator True God), we're given a sadly introspective song such as "The Ballad of Johnny," one of the standout tracks in the album overall. This back-and-forth narrative structure illustrates Speed's wavering opinions of self-worth in the world and his own doubts as the "No-Fi King," the "Second in Command of DAR," and even just as a father and a man of the people. We hear this the most on "The Ballad of Johnny," where Speed tells the audience some of the reasons why he's been as fucked up as he is (parental issues, abandonment issues, having to fend for himself, hustling, et cetera). Using somewhat familiar sample fodder, Speed on the Beat still finds new life in this song.

"Johnny" and its accompanying song "Owning Up," show growth unseen on the first album-and-a-half we've heard from Speed on the Beat. He's not putting the blame on others and, well, owning up. I do question why Speed decided to map out the story with "The Vent" so far away from "Owning Up." I guess "The Vent" sets up the ideas and the two aforementioned songs actually hit the point home.

The Franz Ferdinand-sampling "Fire! (The Rise of the Gift of God)" seems out of place on an album where a man is battling his own demons. But, after listening a few times (maybe four to five times, because the no-fi thing kind of pulls the wheels off this track), you get why he make every choice he did with the album. Life isn't a straight path from hell and back. It takes some curves to get there, but eventually, you'll get there.

If you want to be reborn and live a better life, that is. And, honestly, isn't it a bit more fun that way--to go through hell to get to heaven, or raise hell until it's heaven, to quote Jay Z (who quoted Jay-Z)?

Pros:
1) Speed's production ability shines through here in a way previously unseen. Putting original beats in with samples (some pretty odd samples, such as the "Thanatos" backing track), Speed shows why he's one of the DMV's up-and-coming double threats. I refuse to call you a triple threat, Speed. I've seen that "Holy Grail" cover video. Stop it.
2) The story and structure. Hopefully, Speed will finally be able to reconcile his life (with his son, his ex-fiance, with his friends, and with himself). We'll see on the last album of the story.
3) "The Ballad of Johnny" may very well be one of the best storytelling tracks put out this year.
4) Speed's honesty allow for a completely transparent look at a regular man.

Cons:
1) The no-fi thing can be a bit offputting. I get why he does it. Most of the time, it works well. But sometimes, it can make it hard to get through the entire album.
2) "Don't Take Much (We Cool)" is completely out-of-place on this album. It seems like Speed tried to reach out to the main stream on that one. It looks like it's worked. It's one of the higher-played songs from the album on Spotify. It's not a bad song, it just seems out of place compared to the rest of the album.
3) "Thanatos" is only one verse, with an Evangelion sample. Hopefully, we get to hear the end result on that last album.

Final verdict? Stream it. And if you can deal with the no-fi-ness, buy it. Either way, it's an album you should at least hear once.

Dawn of the Post-Racists

(If you're wondering why I'm using WWE gifs, it's to keep from completely destroying my computer screen as I type this; this is something I'll discuss, in a sense, later on)

It seems that, in our post-Trayvon Martin society (where Trayvon Martin exists as both a human being and an image of a larger problem), those who once hid their horrid opinions are making it painstakingly obvious. Now, I'm not the type that blindly says "oh, hey, racism is over. Us blackies done got us a high-yeller president" and continues to shuck, jive, jiggaboo, or what-in-the-fuck-ever. But, in the past year, racist behavior has gone from appearing like this:

(in other words, fucktarded, but still slightly laughable and out of the ordinary)

to this...

(Just high risk, high impact, sheer fucktastically awful)

or even this:

These days, not only do we get random celebrities appearing in black/bronze/this-would-be-acceptable-in-the-age-of-Sambo-face, we get cops asking people to rap for them (or else they'll go to jail), the increase of people using "ghetto" to describe anything halfway out-of-the-ordinary for their middle class tastes (that's been a problem for years, but it's even worse now. At least in the early 2000s, these types would try to stop themselves around black people), and people rocking Trayvon Martin costumes--complete with bullet wounds.

You're probably thinking "holy shit, this is terrible! What will our youth think of this?"

I've seen young black social media users Photoshop the Martin crime scene photo (the one with Martin's lifeless body sprawled out on the grass) into screencaps of, for instance, The New Boys' "You're a Jerk" video. The result was disheartening and disturbing to say the least. Or, recently, another Martin--Luther King--was Photoshopped onto the box art for the TV series Martin, with Coretta Scott as Gina. Now, we can make an argument that these poor, misguided fucks are just trying to troll because they don't receive attention from their parents and are just trying to go about dealing with their sadness in a way akin to Odd Future. That's to say that they don't exactly understand the rage they feel and feel the need to uncomfortably laugh about it--or get others to laugh about it uncomfortably to hammer a point home. But, eventually, the laughs have to stop--or even just act as something other than trying to elicit a response from people.

And, this is how we've gotten to the (Potential) Dawn of the Post-Racists. They're springing up faster than any zombie movie--and are probably far more threatening.

Blacks can seem too afraid to take that next step with something controversial and just post the image (or sarcastic webpage) and leave it at face value. Whites (and others) can see this as an invite to go along with these behaviors because it comes off as "hey, the blacks don't give a shit anymore about how they portray themselves. Why in the fuck should we? They're out here encouraging killing themselves--in one way or another--and their communities, so why should anyone else care what happens to them?"

I try not to lecture on SpeedontheBeat.com because, well, I'm not perfect, either. I try to educate. But, for fuck's sake, people. Enough is enough! Get it together.