The Whole Delivery

After Meek Nil's awful (first) diss back at Aubrey, here is a "diss" that was already made actually less atrocious with how embarrassing Tweet Mill's was. It's Common's largely forgettable 2011 song that had the middle of the first and second verse aimed at Drake during their Serena Williams love triangle. "All that La La, you ain't no motherf--king Frank Sinatra." More to come from The Whole Delivery today.  

Photo from Fifa.com/Getty Images Score Settled.  Those are the operative words when one comes to mind the minute Carli Lloyd put two goals into the back of the Japanese net in 6 minutes to show the full intent on the United States closing out their World Cup of revenge. It was a start so expedient and clinical, unlike any other World Cup Final had ever seen before, a determination that was set in stone the minute Saki Kumagai hit the final penalty past Hope Solo four years ago in Germany. And it was a desire to feel the glory that the 1991 and 1999 teams felt, instead of the agonizing heartbreak that tormented them for four years all the way to the final whistle was blown at BC place.  The Olympic title for a third straight time and instant revenge in London wasn’t satisfying enough. The hashtag “#ScoretoSettle” was established, because this United States women’s national team program hates when it is not in first place. In their minds, it is against the law of...

Photo from ATP/Getty Images When Dustin Brown was riding in a Volkswagen van throughout Europe a few years ago, it seemed being an unknown tennis nomad would define his career. All the characteristics as an itinerant player with modest accomplishments was firmly in the script for him, coming from a country in Jamaica who supported him less than the number of people who don’t know who Bob Marley is there.  Brown would always be known as the man in the van, the van that his white German mother and black Jamaican father invested for him when he needed to somehow survive in tennis. It was the van that served as his house and kitchen. It was the van that created a racquet stringing center for him to take care of fellow lower ranked players’ sticks as they too were on the precipice of homelessness. It was the van that had him wondering, when he was stuck in a world of doubt and second guessing, if continuing the tennis odyssey he set himself on since the age of 8 was worth con...

Denial of reality can be an alarming, misguided practice that a person can willingly partake on oneself. It is a conspicuous moment revealing how individuals are fully insecure with accepting the truths that they don’t want to embrace, tormenting themselves into a place of a dangerously false universe. Denial is a toxic behavior, and it has long been prevalent in America’s constant struggle with its racist characteristics, long before it became a union and in the current aftermath of its formation two centuries after. The tragic assassination of nine black people at the hands of a 21-year-old white terrorist has sparked another episode of racist denial, not only from conservative Caucasian Americans but even some notable white figures outside the right-wing spectrum. Shifting the focus off racism as the main reason for Dylann Roof’s devilish acts, some quickly attributed the shooting deaths to being simply an attack on Christianity.  Leading in that chorus of denial unsur...

Another song with "Slow Down" that was a major hit at the start of summer 2005 was another perfectly timed debut single in R&B. It was from Pretty Ricky, and like Bobby V, never could match the success from their first song (and let's not even go there on how bad Pleasure P's solo career has gone). The second Flashback Friday choice of the day, it's Pretty Ricky with "Grind With Me." (And those at Warner Music Group screwed up again. This came out in late May 2005, not anytime in 2006. Big Music labels really are so horrible). More to come at The Whole Delivery, stay tuned. 

10 years ago at this time, Bobby Valentino was new and very relevant. Now, not so much. But you can't deny the smoothness that was and still is his debut song/single, "Slow Down." Definitely near graduation/prom music here, it's today's first of several Flashback Fridays from 2005. More to come from The Whole Delivery. Stay tuned. 

Of the edges of D'Angelo and Kendrick Lamar's pro-black efforts, Janelle Monae artist Jidenna has done the perfect song and video for his debut single "Classic Man." It was firmly a representation of black old school excellence in a new era. It's broken through so good that LeBron's "Beat by Dre" commercial plays it. Today's "Music Wakeup Call," Jidenna with "Classic Man." More to come at TWD today.