JBA Central Blog System

It's official, ladies and gentleman, Wyclef Jean has entered the race for President. The native Haitian has confirmed his candidacy and is expected to discuss it live on Thursday, August 5th during a Larry King Live appearance. According to some analysts, the November 28th election is looking pretty good for Wyclef Jean considering his popularity, financial resources and perhaps most importantly, his relief and recovery work following the earthquake in January.

If you're thinking this was a random decision on the fly, thinking again. Jean has been quoted to say "If not for the earthquake, I probably would have waited another 10 years before doing this...The quake drove home to me that Haiti can't wait another 10 years for us to bring it into the 21st century." Jean has also pointed out that the messages he has been singing about, such as equal rights, have great meaning, and that he is simply answering a call of duty. Pierre Eric Jean-Jacques, former Chamber of Deputies and member of the Ansanm Nou Fo party has informed the Associated press that the party has an agreement with Jean regarding his presidential run.

The Hip-Hop world is ripe with female talent. All these ladies are hot, vocally and physically. But you know that, and plenty of male vocalist are reminding you every day with their lyrics giving props to these lovely ladies' fine buttocks and breasts, hips, thighs, and their deep delicious eyes. Too many of these women, praised as they may be, are at risk for cancer, in particular cervical and breast cancer. That's right, cancer, and it's time we all start doing something about it.

You and I may not be able to come up with a cure, but everyone can help make sure that women have information about the steps that can take to stay healthy. Make sure you let the ladies in your world know that you expect them to get regular breast thermography exams - and these days it might just be healthier to avoid mammography until a thermography exam shows signs of something that needs that kind of intensity. Thermography exams, pap smears, these are tools available, so make sure they are being used!

Here's the story that is often told about the origins of hip hop DJing, mixing and cutting:

Once upon a time, Grandmaster Flash, whose real name was Joseph Saddler, started noticing that there were certain points in the music when people were most likely to hit the dance floor. By paying attention to when things really went off on the dance floor he discovered that the break was the most engaging part of the music for most people. By isolating the breaks in songs and playing them in a short loop (this is called the backspin theory or the quick-mix theory) he was able to present only the most engaging parts of music to his audience. And thus, a new style was born: the birth of breaking. Punch phrasing (or clock theory) is also attributed to Grandmaster Flash and involves isolated segments- most often horn hits- and replaying them over the sustained beats. While not attributed to creating scratching, Grandmaster Flash is generally considered to have perfected the art and brought it to the masses.

When it comes to massage, Chicago residents are in lucky to have excellent therapists in the area who can keep their bodies and muscles in top condition! One thing that many people forget is that building muscles and increasing one's strength and flexibility is something that is more easily done with muscles that regularly have all the knots worked out of them. If you are carrying tension in the body, this can actually get in the way of your building muscle without losing flexibility. Break dancers need not only a great deal of strength, but they also need a great deal of flexibility.

One thing that you'll notice if you look at athletes who build strength without stretching is that they can barely actually move their limbs in the joints. One thing you'll notice about any break dancer worth their salt is that their joints have flexibility that seems almost superhuman at times. How to have both strength and flexibility? Proper training, to begin with, but also, keeping muscles in good condition with massage. Massage can help to increase flexibility, relieve tension and insure skeletal-muscular alignment.

It is a real challenge to keep up with all the new music hitting the hip-hop scene. It seems every city has its own underground scene kicking out great new beats to inspire new moves. Of course you can spend hours on You Tube trying to find the hippest stuff, but have you really got the time? Pandora and the like are good resources because once you build a station you can get on with your life and simply check out the info on tracks that grab you. Try not to sell your soul to my space or face book, you may not get it back, and you may not even get any worthwhile new music out if it - just an ugly new computer virus!

Another good alternative is to go old school. Even the cable music stations can clue you in to 20 to 30 year old tracks that you can mix into a great new dance disc to blow people's minds. Remember most people today are so focused on keeping up with the new that they have little exposure to hip hop foundations making it easy to stop a crowd with the introduction of a track that helped build the genre. So next time you are looking for some new sounds to mix into your hip hop discs try doing some time traveling back to the Old Schools and bring them forward.

For the busy B-boys and B-girls out there spring is a time of increasing activity. It's time to bust out the new moves that have been getting worked in bedrooms, living rooms and basements all winter. Those busy schedules bring an increased need for quick dinner planning so you have the energy to keep it happening out on the floor. You are on the move, so take advantage of all those ignored weeds out there. That's right, those dandelions coming up through the cracks , the clover by the fence, the violets at the bus stop and by the parking lot are all using their bright colors to get your attention.

What's their point, you may ask. The fact is those are high nutrient containing foods with the minerals you need to keep your moves fast. So for some easy dinner planning carry a plastic bag with you and start harvesting those weeds while you walk about. Take them home, wash them real good and eat them as a salad or on a sandwich, or mix them up in a stir fry - fast and easy. Good , quick, nutritive, and free, now that is meal planning that works! Of course if you have some yard space, do not spray them, let those weeds grow and then eat them!

My husband works with an advertising agency that enlists celebrities like athletes, actors and other famous folks to do marketing and PR projects for the companies that hire them. As you can imagine, he has quite an interesting job, and one that I look forward to hearing about at dinner each night. For one thing, he has the perks of working with all of that talent - of course, not all of the celebrities he works with really appeal to me personally, but somebody out there likes these people a lot, because they have done wonderful jobs of making sure my husband's clients, and therefore my husband, remain successful. A lot of the times when we're discussing his work, he mentions media placement, and how many companies are realizing the importance of fine-tuning their advertising strategy so that it triggers all the right associations and has credible people to back up the advertised products and services.

According to The New York Observer, rapper Jay Z is branching out of his hip hop homestead, and will soon be working on a new book rather than new music. They suggest that the rapper is nearing the close of a book deal; the rapper has been toying with the notion of publishing a book for about six years now. He is currently negotiating for a publication by Spiegel and Garu, and imprint of Random House publishing.

The rapper has yet to determine exactly what type of book he hopes to release. Rumors suggest that Jay Z’s literary agent, Matthew Guma, has pitched three types of book to the publishers: a traditional memoir of the artist’s life to date, a business book, and a book detailing the back story of the rapper’s lyrics. It seems that we will not learn the secrets of marrying gorgeous women such as Beyonce or the how to become a "balla" from Jay Z anytime soon. Both the memoir and the business book are garnering less interest from the publishers than the book on the rapper’s lyrics. We can look forward to great detail of the real meaning behind the sometimes controversial and always powerful lyrics from the talented Brooklyn rapper.

This book will not be the first that Jay Z has considered publishing. In 2003, the Brooklyn rapper considered publishing “The Black Book” to accompany the release of “The Black Album.” Those plans, however, were discontinued by Jay Z as he opted to only release the album and concentrate his efforts elsewhere. If published, this lyrical literature will be Jay Z’s first publication. The rapper’s book deal is not quite closed, and there is currently no anticipated release date for the book. Neither Jay Z nor Matthew Guma has commented on the book deal.

What's better than social networking and email marketing services, you might wonder? How about combining both these services into one effective music marketing tool? MyNewsletterBuilder's email marketing services and JukeboxAlive.com's unique fusion between a music site and social network have partnered to create marketing tools for music professionsals. With music newsletter templates you can send your subscribers content that will inform them, entertain them, and encourage them to respond to your calls to action and pass on the word- and your newsletter- to their friends.

Imagine the refreshing change your multimedia and content-rich music newsletter will be to your subscribers, bored with text only email marketing campaigns devoid of creativity and compelling them to do nothing more than clicking the delete button. Now picture this: a music newsletter with a one click streaming audio player, dynamic slideshows of featured artists, tour dates, and downloadable podcasts. You may even choose to include links to purchase featured musicians' songs, albums, and tickets to upcoming shows. It doesn't get any easier for subscribers. And with MyNewsletterBuilder's custom tools built for music professionals by music professionals, it's nearly effortless for you, too. You're only a few clicks away from importing music, video, images, logos, playlists, tour information, and any other information from your JukeboxAlive account directly into your newsletter.

Thanks to MyNewsletterBuilder's easy to use music newsletter templates, your email marketing campaign will stand out from the scores of other emails your subscribers are receiving in their inboxes. Turn your email marketing campaign into a multimedia experience and reap the benefits of a music newsletter campaign that is a cut above the rest. Count on MyNewsletterBuilder to help you get the word about the artists you promote and-- trust us-- you'll never go back to plain text emails again.

Over the past few years, there has been a rising backlash against those who make baggy pants part of their fashion statement. Various counties in the United States, from Virginia to Louisiana to Florida have considered or gone through with legislation making the wearing of baggy pants, such that it shows a person's underwear, a punishable offense. That's right, followers of hip-hop fashion have been subjected to jail time and fines over their belt-free lifestyle.

There are plenty who will argue that this legislation has nothing to do with fashion, and everything to do with race. Bill Cosby has spoken up during an NCAA address to share his own opinion about this fashion statement. Unsurprisingly, he's not in favor of it. Within the black community, there is a divide on the issue. Many of the older generation feel that this speaks to youths' no longer remembering the civil rights struggle. Some have theorized that wearing such apparel signifies a certain amount of economic immobility, which gets us into a whole new game of "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" While the youth may argue their freedom to wear such clothing, their elders argue that such clothing will deny them freedoms based on their appearance.

Regardless of how anyone personally feels about the wearing of baggy pants or the message of hip-hop music, one thing is for sure. The days of fines and jail time over fashion violations are likely to be over for many, as Palm Beach Circuit Judge Paul Moyle has declared such legislation to be unconstitutional. As long as you aren't exposing your buttocks or your genitals, you'll be left alone to wear your pants at half-mast, at least legally. There is no end in sight to the pleas of elders to "pull those pants up!"

Of course, if the nay-sayers to hip-hop apparel really want to kill the movement, all they need to do is adopt it...