The Hip-Hop Utility Boot of our Times

Timbs, Timbos or Timbies

The utility boot that was originally designed for hiking and mountaineering, is probably more popular for its usage and wear in hip-hop culture. Since the mid 90’s, the Timberland boots have been a staple in hip-hop culture – from the young Mobb Deep due of Havoc & Prodigy walking Queens, NY in their Timbs in Shook Ones, to the current female video vixens that rock cute pink Timbs, Timberland boots help to define the hip-hop era. You can simply look at a Timb and know what year, or what trend was popping around that time. I always wanted a Timb in high school, but couldn’t afford the high price – I know have one, and I always revert back to it for snow/rainy weather. You can tell the success of a product when the good ‘ol bootleggers in China try to start selling knock-offs, and when there are many imitation brands (pointing at YOU ‘Lugz’, are they still around?).

The Custom Joints
With a popular brand, comes the demand for custom designs to your product – mostly by third-party sources. Here are some interestign ones:

The Dead Presidents Timb

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The Designer Timb

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The Louis Vuittion Timb

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The Scottish Timb

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The Full House Timb

Overall the Timberland line has flourished in the past 10 years or so opening many retail stores throughout North America and the U.K., and have grossed yearly revenue sales that have climbed into the billions.  Another brand that has benefited off of hip-hop culture – hope they give back.

.:: LiBM ::.

Nerban Gift Guide

Some fresh fashions and tech gear for the Nerbans and Nerbanettes for this holiday season – from the highly techie stuff to the cool gear.  You can be a nerd with style!

Iomega 500gb USB powered external Hard Drive

$99 via TigerDirect

The Maraca headphones by WeSC

$64 via KarmaLoop

High Society Pullover by Crooks & Castles

$59 via Dr Jays

The McKenzie Coat by Spiewalk

$169 via KarmaLoop

The Solomon Fatsax by LRG

$26 via KarmaLoop

The Vaider Sneaker by Supra

$96 via KarmaLoop

.:: LiBM ::.

Festivus Greetings!

Spawned from a Seinfeld TV episode in 1997 as “A holiday celebrated by those frustrated with the commercialism and pressure surrounding the Christmas/Hanukkah season”, this secular holiday seasons has gained traction and is now practiced by millions of people across the world – I am sure seriously and jokingly. But really, this holiday is interesting to me nonetheless because I am sure it expresses feelings that many of us feel during the Christmas season; with the family members, shopping tribulations, awkward social dinners & parties, and so on. One could easily dub some of the elements of the Festivus holiday with a dose of ‘reality’; as the elements allow one to get as Young Jeezy said, “As Real as it Gets”. Enter the Rituals:

Airing of Grievances

The celebration of Festivus begins with the “Airing of Grievances”, which takes place immediately after the Festivus dinner has been served. It consists of lashing out at others and the world about how one has been disappointed in the past year.
- oh man, I am sure that many secretly wish & desire that they can do this – everyone can relate to this as I am sure there are many people you want to air out, fighter jet style, to let them know what you think of them and how they have disappointed you over the year(s).

Feats of Strength

“As described in the “Festivus Book”, the head of the household selects one person at the Festivus celebration and challenges that person to a wrestling match.[8] The person may decline if they have something else to do, such as pull a double shift at work. Tradition states that Festivus is not over until the head of the household is pinned in a wrestling match.”

Other Festivus rituals include the Festivus Dinner that usually includes a subpar dinner, and the Festivus Pole; which replaces the ‘Christmas tree’ with a simple, simple, simple facsimile (minus the trimmings). There are even books and a website to support and promote this holiday (http://www.festivusbook.com/), and on YouTube many people have recorded their celebrations to share the world.

Even a company is making a business out of making a ‘Festivus Pole’, SMH

In all, I am sure the creator of Festivus, which is one of the Seinfeld writers “Dan O’Keefe”, never thought that this holiday would be what it is today, but I guess when you connect with what people are feeling, anything can happen …. Happy Festivus to all!

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus

Poor Tiger

This story keeps unfolding and getting worse for Tiger Woods, but with most public tragedies come some creative humor – at the expense of some. The ‘mashup’ is the new trend, so the following are some funny mashup videos as people have likened Tiger to famous/infamous cheaters such as Shaq, Kobe, Chris Brown, Mike Tyson, Bill Clinton … and the list goes on.

1-900 Cheater

Feat. Tiger Woods, Shaq, Chris Brown. Based of Jay-Z’s classic ‘1-900 Cheater track’.

Eye of the Tiger

Chinese TV Re-enactment

This has to be the funniest animation and most insulting to Tiger Woods – they have him crying like a bitch, but funny.

BlogStar

A guide to making a Hip-Hop Blog

Its been a minute since I have actually ‘written’ anything on the blog; notice the word ‘written’. Due to a busy and demanding schedule I had to resort to what my peers do so often – post Youtube/video clips. Now, there isn’t anything really wrong with that – heck, if a video is worth posting, then one should post it, right? And that is what many of my peers (the hip-hop/black blogs) seem to be doing constantly as they post the newest and latest audio track from Drake, Weezy, or Gucci Mane (which baffles me). To get into it, I have noticed that many of the hip-hop blogs out there have the same content, sometimes the posts are in the same order – meaning that they are importing a feed from somewhere. And I was like ‘wow’, this is really lame. Its good to see that the hip-hop/black blogs are out there, but people are not really giving opinions, no fresh ideas, or insightful wisdom is coming out – just regurgitated content coming from a few sources. So I had to ask myself ‘why is this the case?’, I mean the supply of content is plentiful, so why isn’t there varied content ranging from entertainment to social, psychological, and political issues? Or is the demand only focused on the entertainment?

Steps to Blog Fame

So with that said, I thought it would be prudent for aspiring blog ‘writers’ to have a guide as to how to produce and maintain a blog:

1. Cool Name

- Take a common phrase from hip-hop culture, like ‘Swagsterboys.com’ or ‘onthecorner.com’ or some other madness

2. Jack Off

Not literally, but if you do, do ya thing. But this refers to where you pull your content from, many bloggers like yourself get their content from RapRadar, Allhiphop, hiphopdx, worldstarhiphop, and vladtv. If you are ‘tech with it’, you can even take their feed URL, burn their feed with FeedBurner, and re-publish that feed for your own creative, unique, and suave blog.
- www.google.com/feedburner for more info

3. Collective Commentary

Of course you must distinguish yourself from the others, so what other way to do that than to comment on the content you ripped. The sharp and quick one-liners add flavor to your blog; even though the one-liners may be from the source you got the video from – hey, its ok, its still your own hands that wrote it!

4. That’s a wrap!

I mean, there is nothing else more to do right? Just mention your blog to your friends, your social network, and claim to have the latest and best content!

With the sarcasm aside, maybe I am expecting too much from these blogs, maybe I need to understand that this is only a section of hip-hop/black blogs. I mean, there are many good blogs on AOL’s BlackVoices.com, but outside of that, I don’t think there are much more. Maybe I am confusing the relationship between hip-hop & black blogs – though I am finding that most of the Black Blogs ARE hip-hop blogs. And then, maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t complain as much as I am in my own lane, and I can actually string together words to make sentences, that makes paragraphs, that makes a ‘thought’ or an ‘idea’ ….

Step your game up peers.

.:: LiBM ::.