Admit it. You have just been dying to put an actual voice to these words you read everyday. Good news: I was a guest on NPR today. Bad news: it's not such a great voice, and I'm going to need to retire "you know" from my repertoire.

I was joined on News & Notes' weekly blogger's roundtable by Shay Riley of Booker Rising and Brandon Whitney of Homeland Colors. Today's topics were the Jena Six's BET Hip Hop Awards cameo, Bill Cosby's Meet the Press appearance, and the acquittal of the defendants in the boot camp death case, all of which are things you pretty much know my opinions (which I'm much better at expressing in written form, unfortunately) on if you read the blog. Still, it's fun to listen. Click here to check it out.

A lot of talk went on in the comments yesterday about "real hip hop" vs. the stuff Oprah and Bill Cosby listen to and judge, and I thought I would post one of my faves from the talented, long-lasting, well-known, yet widely-ignored Roots, 1995's "Proceed." Black Thought is kind of ageless, isn't he? I can't say the same for ?uestlove, who looks like a baby in this video.

Bill Cosby, one of the most vocal and outspoken critics of both black people and hip hop who's not employed by Fox News, went on Meet the Press recently to discuss his new book, Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors. I never think Bill Cosby is totally wrong when he comes out and speaks about hip hop, just like I don't think that Oprah Winfrey is. In fact, I sort of feel like they're mostly right.

Still, there is a lot about the music and the culture they don't understand, and, as a result, they present their arguments in a way that puts the people making the music and its fans on the defensive instead of making them stop and think. At this point, though, I wonder if anything is going to make an artist who has netted millions off of the degradation of women and the promotion of violence actually stop and think. If Heathcliff Huxtable can't do it, who can?

[RTNY]

Watching all of those Soulja Boy cartoon mash-ups on YouTube yesterday — great procrastination fodder, but I think I'll die if I hear that song again — had me feening for some animation that wasn't set to music that hurts my ears after the fourth consecutive listen. Hence Fat Alber, brought to you by a young, fit, and not-grumpy Bill Cosby.

Considering how hard he's been going at black people for the last few years, prison is the last place I would except Bill Cosby to give an uplifting speech.

And yet he showed up recently at the Connecticut’s Enfield at Willard-Cybulski Correctional Institution to speak to recent GED graduates. Come to think of it, the erstwhile Healthcliff Huxtable is all about a commencement address, so he probably jumped at the chance. Apparently, he got in his tough love bit, but he was funny and kind, too.

Cosby also emphasized personal responsibility, reminding the inmates that at some point in their lives they did something stupid to land them in prison.

"Obviously, you weren't too bright," he said, but added, "what you did was stupid … you're not stupid."

Cosby also advised the graduates not to slip back into old habits once released from prison, stating: "You can't be with the boys anymore."

He acknowledged that the inmates may have grown up in broken homes or abandoned by someone important in their lives at some point along the way.

"All of you who have been abandoned, it's not your fault," he said.
"It's not your fault. It's not your fault. You have to move on."

He told reporters after the graduation that speeches from the student/inmates nearly broke him down. It seemed like Bill Cosby was getting harder and more serious in his old age, but maybe it's the opposite.

[EUR]