Erykah Badu is a funny woman - in a good way. She’s also forgetful. Erykah Badu said the video for “Window Seat” — the single off New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh — was inspired by Matt and Kim’s romp through Times Square. I’ll remind her, in a 2006 interview for Before the Music Dies, she said to pop in the music industry, artists have to get down with butt naked Wednesdays..
“Just be butt naked somewhere. Butt naked with glitter on you and a beeper!”

Regardless if the video was inspired by Matt and Kim or an unconscious remix of the quote, Erykah’s shock and gawk tactic worked. “Window Seat” is a classic, earthy, Badu track, but you won’t see incense or candles burning, hear birds chirping, or spot people glowing in soul mode. Dressed in a coat, hoodie, and sunglasses, Erykah parks her car in front of a city building, drops coin in the meter, and proceeds to walk down the street, removing her clothes, piece by piece - until there are none.

It’s butt naked day!

You might have spotted the donk she chooses [not] to use as a weapon - unless it’s a rapper in need of training.

You might have wondered if “Evolving” scribbled on her back was permanently inked.

Your questions won’t be answered; it’s all a part of Erykah Badu’s plan to grab people’s eyes and ears and enrapt them in her spell.

Sit still and listen..  “They play it safe. Are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs. Ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel most comfortable in groups. Less guilt to swallow. They are us…
This is what we have become, afraid to respect the individual. A single person or event or circumstance can move one to change. To love ourself. To evolve.”

Say what you will, her ‘plan’ and thoughts about [they] worked. Erykah Badu’s name is all over the web, Facebook, and on Twitter’s trend chart. That’s the kind of publicity artists usually drop big money for; it would have never happened if she had played it safe.

That’s the only thought to remember.

Not shocked, but I am surprised: Sony has apparently blocked the music videos on Beyonce’s official YouTube channel. The promotional pieces for House of Dereon are still available, but, try to get a third look at “Video Phone” and you get a message from YouTube’s legal department, “This video contains content from Sony Music Entertainment, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.”

With no information about [why] the channel was blocked, let’s guess Sony and YouTube executives are at each other’s throats over how much money Sony should be paid for their videos.

Beyonce’s channel generates 10s of millions of views; “Video Phone” has 5.6 million by itself. With numbers like that you can hear the one-sided call now, “Hey, YouTube. You know, that we know, Beyonce is banging it out for you - we’re raising our rates!”

Beyonce’s I Am…Sasha Fierce has sold amazingly well, despite the music industry’s troubles; which aren’t just related to piracy, there is also a lack of innovation and fresh thinking about the digital space.
And here we have Sony’s execs proving they also kick it with the crew that don’t get/care about the correlation between free promotion/exposure - music videos everywhere - and sustained sales of their music. Keep em’ watching, keep em’ talking, cash in when and where you can. That’s the way to go.

It’s what MTV gave them in the past and YouTube (and allowing embeds) provides today. Sony is already paid for their videos, but when the stats tick up, it becomes a Gordon Gecko situation.. Greed is good!

That’s where Vevo comes in: with EMI and Universal, Sony is a partner of the music video ‘network’ - some people don’t care for it.

Beyonce’s videos [are] available there.

Look at it as their way of forcing you to love them. Tongue shoved down your throat - you know you like it.

On Saturday, March 20, Serena Williams and Selita Ebanks were guests at Telemundo’s annual Women of Tomorrow bash. The Women of Tomorrow is a program that encourages young at-risk women to live up to their full potential.

Jennifer Valoppi founded the program..

with two strong beliefs about young women. First: self-limiting beliefs are what hold women back in the workplace, not men’s. Second: women who do make it to the top like being the only one’s there and don’t do much to help other women along. Jennifer wanted to change that.

In addition to a scholarship program, and a multitude of resources, accomplished women in arts, business, and entertainment, meet with small groups of at-risk girls in public high schools once a month to discuss ways to overcome obstacles and develop skills for success. The girls who participate in the program graduate at close to a 90% rate.

Good things.

Serena is looking good too. Not sure where Selita drifted off to. We’ll have to catch her on Celebrity Apprentice.

Young Iranians used Twitter to dispute election results; charities collected millions for victims of Haiti’s earthquake; President Obama’s address was discussed nationwide; and whenever Steve Jobs takes the stage for a new ‘groundbreaking’ Apple product announcement, it’s a hot topic. That said, when nothing is going on in the world, Twitter’s trend lists can be pretty ridiculous/juvenile. No intellectual holy water to splash. It’s simply a reflection of the conversations people have on the daily; if Jack Dorsey had never sketched his vision of a SMS social network, people would still make those trend list topics public knowledge.

Point proven @ And I Am Not Lying. ← the name of a blog by Jeff Simmermon. In a March 4 post he wrote about a 3rd grader with a list ready made for one of Twitter’s uneventful days. In his words..

“My friend’s cousin is a teacher at a charter school in Washington, D.C. She found this on the floor of a 3rd grade classroom and recognized it for the gold mine that it is.”

“It” would be a list of 90 types of bitches.

Definitely read the whole story (and list) at Types of Bitches.

Some of this stuff is hilarious - “dry scalp dandruff bitches .. pajamas outside bitches.. bitches who be ignoring you when they know they can hear you.. wearing shoes that be talking bitches.”

Ok, it’s also sad comedy, because if a girl’s shoes are talking she obviously has bigger problems at home. That social pause was covered in a follow-up post, Bitches Lost their Minds. In addition to Jeff Simmermon’s plea to settle down, he reposted a Washington DC teacher’s reply to those concerned about the young girl who wrote the list.

A Washington DC Teacher’s Reply to..

bitches who want to comment on things they have not seen, heard, lived or even marginally appreciated (more specifically.)

• don’t know a tenderhead bitch
• couldn’t find a kitchen bitch
• can’t discern a lingual pattern in vernaculars bitch
• tryin to apply this list to your elitist college life, BITCH?
• “really wish i could save them” bitches
• (who often become) “i’m applying to TFA” bitches
• “can i touch your hair?” bitches
• bitches who be perplexed that some people don’t shampoo daily
• “what does a weave look like?” bitches
• don’t know how to correctly use ‘dark, brown, light-skinned or chocolate’ bitches
• bitches always assumed to be named Sara/h, Ashley or Jenny
• brown friends don’t mean you’re not racist, BITCH
• stuck on some double negatives bitches
• strugglin to read children’s stories by Lucille Clifton bitches

Not sure this teacher is helping; I can only shake my head.. bitches.

Tomorrow night we’ll all be watching the Oscars and chatting it up twenty ten style via Twitter. Gabourey Sidibe is racking up awards for her role in Precious. Among them, an NAACP Image award, an Independent Spirit award and she’s up for an Oscar in the best actress category. A win at the Oscars will even put smiles on the loser’s faces. If she does win - which I hope she does - Gabourey is going to have to take on vastly different roles in the future, to prove she can portray more than a school of hard luck teenager.

I’ve written about it and Gabourey is still reminding people, Precious was a character in a movie. “I’m so different. All it takes is a conversation, a sentence from me, to know that I’m not that girl,” Sidibe says. I suspect people hear what she’s saying but still think, “Hey, Precious is on the red carpet!”

Lee Daniels, the director of Precious, says Gabourey’s personality is the complete opposite of Precious and he has her next starring role in the sketching stage to prove it - we’ll see how that works out.

In the meantime, Pop Sugar TV is all aboard the Gabourey Sidibe train; win or lose, they predict she’ll emerge from the Oscars as an It Girl - along with Zoe Saldana, the voice of Avatar’s Neytiri, and young apprentice, Anna Kendrick, from the George Clooney flick Up in the Air. It Girl, means a step forward to see first, know right away status, translating into Diddy’s infamous problemo: mo money, mo stuff to handle. A problem not too many mind having.

Zoe Saldana isn’t nominated for anything, but I’m glad to see her name in super bright lights; been a fan for years. Anyone have her number?