What a tribute to a rich and proud heritage

The devil is alive and busy y'all.

I've just now stop trembling from bearing witness to the you-know-what awards Sunday.  (I stil can't even bring myself to utter its name into the universe; unlike you tragic pop culture victims, I refuse to give it power and dominion over me.)

Boy oh boy. Your cousins and 'nem really put on a quite a show huh? I mean, there was even a jug of Kool-Aid on stage, courtesy of Ving Rhames-- a true class act, that one. All that was missing was a dominoes game and a fist-fight over the last piece of chicken and my soul would be worth exactly a penny with a hole in it right now.

As my friend Kaveen Scott said on Facebook, that thing is "the swine flu of awards ceremonies" and I co-sign 1,000 percent.

Guns is Michael Jackson!

And so what comfort doth the universe offer me like a balm in Gilead? The lineup for the Umoja Festival, announced yesterday. I'm happy to learn that Jagged Edge--great act--will be there, Sept. 19, along with Heads of State, which is basically everybody from New Edition OTHER than Bell Biv Devoe. And that of course includes Bobby Brown. Lord have mercy! If God, as it's often been said, has a sense of humor, then this is his version of the Kings of Comedy.

Indeed, when I think about living artists who embody the grace and strength of Black History, one of the first people that pops to mind is Bobby Brown. I'm serious. His contributions have been so varied and everlasting: the Gumby; the show stopping tactic of humping a floor; the unparalleled ability to turn a grand performer like Whitney Houston into the neighborhood crackhead searching the sidewalk for smokeable Newport butts in a few short years. Now that's power.

You know I kid, I kid. Booking Bobby is actually smart: everybody loves a comeback, and you know as well as I that there's a certain schadenfreude-based curiosity in seeing someone like Bobbaaay back on stage. We want to know if he's still got it, if he'll pass out, if he'll stop and do a line right there on stage.

There's only one way to find out huh?

Say it with me: Guns is Michael Jackson!

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