Looks all cute! 13-year old twins. Some popular music band too.

…fast forward:

“When the man who plows the fields is driven from his lands.
When the carpenter must give away what he's built with his own hands.
When a mother's only children belong to her no more.
And black masked men with guns come bashing down the doors.
Where freedom exists for only those with darker skin.
Where lies and propaganda will never let you win.
Where symbols of your heritage are held with such contempt,
and benefits of country 'cept tax are you exempt .

Aryan man awake,
How much more will you take,
Turn that fear to hate,
Aryan man awake!” ( Words by Lamb and April)


….And then.


“I see you all around me.
I see the apathy in your eyes,
knowing not what it means to be free,
watching as the White flame dies.
It means nothing to you,
Pride is an unknown trait.
Tell me what are you gonna do run
and hide or face the hate?

Hang your head in shame.
Have you no pride in your heritage,
and no pride in your name?
I'm glad that I'm not like you.
I know my children are proud of me.
While yours still suffer too,
mine I know will always stay free.” (words: McLellan)


Well these are songs by a band called “Prussian Blue” who describe themselves as “Lynx and Lamb, twin girls from California, with great musical talents, who are not just talented girls—they are also charming and loving sisters.”


Whats the most pressing concern for the duo?
“Not having enough white babies born to replace ourselves and generally not having good-quality white people being born. It seems like smart white girls who have good eugenics are more interested in making money in a career or partying than getting married and having a family. And yes, we are working on some new songs about this issue.”


Media have discovered them full blast. White supremacist, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke uses them to gain support. The girls sing in praise of late white separatist leader Robert Mathews, proclaiming him as someone whose flag will forever fly and in whose memory the land will stand up one day.

And their music is mayhem. Or great promise for the future. Depending on where you come from.

Tags: Saswat, Racism, USA, Music

The beautiful and radical Celine Dion on Larry King Live.

You know, some people are stealing and they’re making a big deal out of it. Oh, they’re stealing 20 pair of jeans or they’re stealing television sets. Who cares? They’re not going to go too far with it. Maybe those people are so poor, some of the people who do that they’re so poor they’ve never touched anything in their lives. Let them touch those things for once.

KING: Joining us now is an old and dear friend, Celine Dion, the musical superstar. She's in her dressing room at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. She will go on stage in about a half hour. She and the director of her wonderful show, a show I've seen, Franco Dragone, have donated by the way, pledged $1 million to the American Red Cross.

What has been your response, Celine, to this? I especially ask this because you're French Canadian from Montreal and New Orleans is a mostly French city.

CELINE DION, SINGER: Correct and I've been there a few times. We've stayed there. I've, you know, filmed videos there and so Rene and I, we've been to New Orleans. And, I have to say, Larry, that and state it as the rest of the world if I may I was watching you behind, there's a television right now, I'm watching and I'm especially waiting like the rest of the world.

I'm waking up in the morning. I'm having a coffee. I barely can swallow it. I come here at Caesar's Palace every night to perform. I barely can sing. But for respect the people who come I am still singing. When I come home at night, my son is waiting for me. I watch television.

Yes, we gave $1 million but what we expect, what I want to look like the rest of the world, I open the television there's people still there waiting to be rescued and for me it's not acceptable. I know there's reasons for it. I'm sorry to say I'm being rude but I don't want to hear those reasons.

You know, some people are stealing and they're making a big deal out of it. Oh, they're stealing 20 pair of jeans or they're stealing television sets. Who cares? They're not going to go too far with it. Maybe those people are so poor, some of the people who do that they're so poor they've never touched anything in their lives. Let them touch those things for once.

The main thing right now it's not the people who are stealing. It's the people who are left there and they're watching helicopters flying over their heads and they're praying. How come it's so easy to send planes in another country to kill everyone in a second, to destroy lives?

We need to serve our country and for me to serve our country is to be there right now to rescue the rest of the people. We need the cash. We need the blood. We need the support. Right now we need the prayers.

You know when I was hearing a couple of days ago that these things are not reachable it's too full of water, maybe I'm too much like my -- I'm not thinking with my head. I'm talking with my heart. Nobody can open any roofs? The helicopters flying in take two people at a time, take a kayak. Go into those walls.

There's kids being raped at night. They hear gunshots, big guns, what's that? Those people are praying. They're walking. They're like this, hello, do you see us? We're still alive but we're dying. It's terrible.

KING: Celine.

DION: I do not want to talk to you about money.

KING: How do you explain it to your young son?

DION: Well, I have to (INADUIBLE).

KING: Are you OK?

DION: Yes, Rene Charles knows because sometimes he watches televisions with me and I'm saying to him those people went through a big storm and they will be fine because I know at the end they'll be fine and I hope and we're all praying for them. I'm trying not to put to Rene Charles something so dramatic and that's why I'm sorry for crying so hard because I'm holding it for the last week and I'm trying to tell my son that everything is going to be OK. But I see those mothers over there, they're like (INAUDIBLE).

KING: But look at this thins way, Celine, though a lot of people, we've been doing the show now for two and a half hours. We've been asking a lot of people how they can help, how you can help? A lot of people all over the world want to help. You gave $1 million.

You're going to help a lot of people live and survive. You should take great pride in that, one, that you've attained the ability to be able to do that, to be able to give $1 million. You should take pride in that.

DION: I understand it. I understand it's very important because eventually they will need that money but it's just very frustrating that Franco and (INAUDIBLE) and me oh $1 million. This is one thing.

In three months, in six months they will need that money. Right now they're praying for water so we need to send them the water. They don't care about my check. So, it's just frustrating because in our part of the world we're trying our best and we're expecting those people -- I'm sorry.

KING: Your check will turn into something. I know you got to go on soon but we couldn't spend any time with you without asking you, do you have any kind of thing you would like to sing that fits this moment? Is there any song?

DION: Oh, my gosh.

KING: Even if you did a little of it. I don't want to...

DION: Well, the only song that comes to my mind right now is definitely a prayer. I did sing that song a few weeks -- a few years back with Andrea Bocelli.

KING: Ah, yes.

DION: And I cannot think -- I cannot think about a song but a prayer. I will do my very best and I'll do my best.

(CELINE SINGS "THE PRAYER")

DION: God bless them all.

KING: Thank you, Celine. Celine Dion, she'll go on stage in 20 minutes. There's a trooper.

Tags: Saswat, Music, Capitalism, Canada

A song on the singer! A radical lyric about the radical poet. Adrian Mitchell has written to the tune of Arlo Guthrie!
Revolutionary songs were always meant to be simple. Straight. Honest. About unsung peoples. And heroic Fights. Jara led the exemplary life. Guthrie, son of the legendary Woody, pays tribute… Read More...

Tags: Saswat, Music, Communism, Chile, Cold War

By Saswat Pattanayak

Air Supply performed in Cuba for two days!

Nothing surprising to Havana. Cubans were enthralled, floored and they very warmly welcomed Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell.

It was yet another surprising event for the Western mainstream media to digest. Of course, no one covered it live or even secondarily. Mostly, they got the news off the Associated Press brief. And even at that, they said they were astonished. (Remember, the narrative of how some sort of freedom is limited to the proverbial land of the free!)

The media were also astonished when Audioslave performed in Cuba in May. The astonishments appear to be not so original discoveries after all. On a closer glance, both the Canadian Press and the Associated Press said the same thing! And now we are astonished! Yes, the western media propaganda machine runs overnight so well that they even copy the exact languages! Check out the following two stories:

This one is from the Canadian Press

And this one is from Associated Press

Also check this one from the Washington Post. Story bylined. From AP.

Using precisely the SAME words to express surprise over how much the Western press were shocked at Air Supply being invited, one wonders if the ghost writers are the one and the same? And does it not violate copyright or whatever they call it. Who cheats from whom? Or are they the same!

What more does it tell? Well, the same mill produces stories of how perverse Cuba has become, it’s investing on tourism, it’s a place where women are publicly dancing and wearing jeans and smoking pot. So the theory which is almost written on stone of the mainstream press is that, with the rock groups and the lowly women, its goodbye communism!

To such frivolous arguments, I have no rejoinders. But its so hilariously degrading bunch of logic that I need to react. To begin with, rocksters, starting from the Beatles to the Dylans, have always been progressive in their orientation. In fact the underground punk have been one of the most vocal political outbursts of our times. On the contrary, the censorships issued to artists like The Roots and Arrested Development are incidents not taking place in very farther lands. And with the Clash and Rage Against the Machine, do we need to say the words?

As for the women, Janet Jackson is not an issue abroad. Plus free love was never born out of capitalistic endeavors. And Ayn Rand or Ann Coulter never developed the Smoke Pot movement. And we know who has the biggest cigars.

Hypocrisy sees the light of the day amidst capitalistic contradictions. Air Supply while performing in the Karl Marx theatre must have sensed it.

More power to the ones who made “love out of nothing at all……”

Tags: Saswat, Music, Cuba, Communism

Well, the other reason for celebration of the day is of course Michael Jackson. After recording James Curtis show for all these days since two months now, watching all the re-enactments of the courtroom scenes, I was waiting for this day to hear of the decision. Amrita had asked me how would it feel when after all these days of suspense, the verdict is passed. Well, June 13 arrived. Came good. Real good.

In the classic case between Thomas Mesereau Jr. and Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon, the former won. After 72 days of suspense, it was agreed upon a by the jury that Michael Jackson was not guilty on any of the ten counts brought up against him.

The singer I grew up with in India: immersed in a dream of the impossible, the ecological diversity and the nullification of color lines, the challenges of the dance conventions and the benefits of doubt for the 'bad' outlaw. Jackson, one of the heroes who always adorned my room walls not only because of how he was as a performer, but also because who he was as a human being, today was finally declared innocent.

As he rightly says, "Children had not betrayed me. Adults have let me down." I guess the media obsession with the Jackson trials going on since a decade now will finally end, and as Liz Taylor said, the "people will leave him alone now."

Jackson is not just a performer. He has served as a ray of hope for a changing world since decades now. Defying the American hegemonies, transcending the borderlines of continents, gender, and race, MJ stood for issues bigger than the immediate. The most successful African-American entertainer of all times, he courted political lines because he could not have afforded to do otherwise.

We made enough mockery of this man. Now lets celebrate him and the words he lives by. Of late, haven't we had enough of the romantic longing blues and hitting baby toxications? More than mouthful of apple butts and hip-hop imageries? "Man in the Mirror" and "The Earth Song" will forever remain in our minds to remind of MJ legacy. But here is one lesser known song he wrote to celebrate the Planet Earth. For better hopes sake: Read More...

Tags: Saswat, Literature, Music

Rolling Stone has awarded Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” as the best song of all time!

Click here to get the top 100 song list:
Well what do you all think? Is there a better one?
Check this out... Its not just sheer poetry. Its Bob Dylan!

"You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?"

Tags: Saswat, Music, Communism

Jared sends some pictures on the Hip Hop Political Convention.

The rest of the pictures can be accessed here.

Tags: Saswat, Music, Black Power, Activism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Watching Bob Dylan at Warren Theatre (with Gloria) today was a unique opportunity: one could almost come to terms with how resigned life can be at times. The voice that once commanded, spoke with confidence; the words that were written with optimism and sung with amazing vigor; the celebrity that refused interview to Time magazine because it was elitist and the worker who sung paying tribute to Woody Guthrie when what Woody stood for had almost been forgotten.

Now, Bob Dylan could be the antithesis to all that he once used to be. Is he plain retired? Or is he mocking at the cynical past and contented present and predicting a gloomy future? Is he just singing for the sake of it?

Classical argument is all about it. A singer, after all, is a singer and can aspire to be a better singer. Arundhati Ray is a good writer and need not be an activist. She vehemently protests. But Dylan has been silent. Almost stoic.

Rolling Stone magazine would agree in its recent write up on him, when Dylan is said to be merely a songwriter doing his job of thinking what’s the next good song going to be. A singer who is just waiting to churn out another album.
What next? An entertainer hiring a band of secretaries to keep track of album sales and advertisement deals? To own a Dylan Mansion perhaps and call it Tambourine Land? Or to model for Victoria’s Secret?

I don’t know what he thinks, but it’s a fact that he was a voice of the spirited 60’s that went unbridled and sang unchained and attacked the establishment unabashedly. Dylan is no Dylan without “Time’s they are a changing.” The argument behind who should be the interpreter of the author’s work is still a Gordian knot to crack. But to say that the creator of the work alone is the sole authority would be a naivety. Worse still, to underrate the role of the audience/readers in catapulting the creator where he/she is now. When the matter is about glory, the audience are active participants in acquiring the said position for the celebrated. As participant, I have a role. And a question.

What has changed Dylan?

Tags: Saswat, Music, Communism

Just compiling some information for a Harambee radio show being hosted by my good friend Jared.

Hard work, but very interesing along the line of self-discoveries. Here are some definitions, uses and origins of Hip Hop, for the show.

N.Y. Rocker 1982:
Hip-hop DJ's can repeat ever-shorter phrases, with a little nimble-fingered action on the rim or the label.

N.Y. Times 1982:
He [sc. D. J. Hollywood] phrased to the beat of a funk record and paced himself with a repeating refrain, usually a variation on the nonsense formula ‘hip, hop, hip-hip-de-hop’. Read More...

Tags: Saswat, Black Power, Music, History

Village Voice has this story on Young South Asians' Love-Hate Relationship with Hip-Hop's New Indian Beats
Mix This by Tina Chadha talks about the tensions in the music industry of hip hop and myths of cultural purity.
Belly dancing is Middle Eastern, not Indian. But you wouldn't know from
videos of Indian-influenced hip-hop. Ever since Timbaland accidentally
bought an Indian CD five years ago, artists from Missy Elliott to Bubba
Sparxxx to Justin Timberlake have turned to outdated Indian tracks to
make crowds gyrate. Although they may not know Bollywood from bhajans,
and their lyrics sometimes contain misguided stereotypes, they're
making Indian music more popular here than ever.
This week, the U.K.'s Panjabi MC is dropping his American debut, which
could set the record straight. His hit "Beware of the Boys" has pumped
through Indian kids' CD players for nearly a half-decade, and is now
(with a couple of verses by Jay-Z) racking up 3,200 spins a week in the
U.S. So young Indians are hoping they'll finally get some cultural
respect, starting with the word Punjabi, pronounced "Pun-jabi" not
"Poon-jabi." (Though it is spelled Panjabi sometimes.) Read More...

Tags: Saswat, Music, Bollywood, Black Power, India

R&B crooner Barry White is no more. White was a tire-thief and an eternal musician.
For the uninitiated, Never, Never Gonna Give You Up and I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Baby are his classics.

Tags: Saswat, Music, News