Marvin Gaye, Gourmet And The Day It All Made Sense

these photos lead to this, which happened to be the most refreshing blog I've encountered in a very long time. Gourmet NFN has been infamous for (the hated and loved) canvas/casual approach to a popular line of Nikes.



Remind you of a tennis shoe you know? Good. They won over many with their extremely clean silhouettes and canvas uppers. They were a luxury approach to a disposable athletic shoe. And a preview of their latest line is something to seriously watch out for.

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Upon conversation with a friend, I remarked to her how Kanye's 808s & Heartbreak reminded me of Marvin Gaye's "Here, My Dear. Since Marvin had to surrender the revenue from that album to his newly divorced wife, he simply just put all their shit out there, and basically sang to her.

That lead to me rediscovering I Want You, which is regarded to a great deal of people as the greatest R&B album of all-time.

...there is no better soundtrack to intimacy in my opinion.

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Common's new album sucked, and has proven my theory that he has retired. Hear me out real quick...

Common's albums have shown continual musical and lyrical growth going from his first album to Electric Circus. After the peak of Like Water For Chocolate (the Grammy nominations and selling over 700,000 records), Common asked his newly born fans to trust him on the journey he was about to take.

To say Electric Circus was to the left is a large understatement. Fans who favored Common's traditional approach to hip-hop were disappointed, and his mode of music was not easy to digest in the hip-hop circle. His record label (MCA) had folded right after the release, so the album was never promoted outside the boundaries of The Source, Vibe, XXL, etc. and thus never was able to reach the other genres that Common had exhibited on the album.

Also, Common had just broken up with Erykah Badu who we all know had an influence on his music, as would any love interest. Common had confronted homophobia on this album, phone sex, made musical leaps and even ?uestlove quoted that "outside of Voodoo (D'Angelo), EC was his favorite project of the Electric Lady peroid." After all of these events and feelings, the album was almost universally hated and shunned and everyone was saying that Common was being manipulated by a woman.

He said fuck it. He went back to making safe hip-hop, started chasing ass (Serena Willams as a follow-up to Badu???) and making movies.
...and money.

In 2008, Common made $12 Million in endorsements, movies & etc.

He doesn't give a fuck about hip-hop anymore. He used to love her. Seriously.