Melvin Gibbs

my band was about to take the stage at the Prospect Park bandshell when we found out that Michael Jackson had passed. At least I & the people coming to my listening party tonight have a few hours to process the news about D’Angelo
#RIP to one of the greats

Amasia: Anamibia Sessions 2, by Melvin Gibbs 6 track album

my album
Amasia: Anamibia Sessions 2
is out today!
I can't do the false humility/humble brag thing about it...
This Record Is Fire 🔥🔥🔥🔥
but hey - you don't need to believe me
Go take a listen
melvin-gibbs.bandcamp.com/album/amasia...

look
I'm "straight" "cis-het"...whatever terminology you want to use.
Back in the day the Broadway singer whose band I was playing in called me "relentlessly heterosexual"
But I believe
When You Play Free Music
You Stand For Freedom
For EVERYBODY

10/10 - no notes

Tonight!

LA: we will fight you.

Chicago: we will fight you.

PDX: we will make you endure week after week of of improv theater.

In memory of Andrew Yang's mayoral run
let's take moment to honor him for:
1) taking the A train to the Bronx to see the Yankees
2) calling a 7-11 a bodega

WHERE you order is just as important as what
ordering a plain slice from Di Fara's will get me more cred & votes than a pepperoni slice from Roberta's
(but a smart politician would do both)
My non-traditional order from from Ess-A-Bagel will get me more votes than traditional one from 7-11

"I wish I had a pattie with cocoa bread from Christies" would make you the #1 candidate for Brooklyn Borough President lol

before I let this go
I'm gonna remind y'all
that Eric Adams
shouted out the Harlem Juice Bar
(the old skool uptown vegan spot)
when he was running for mayor
he wasn't a good mayor
but
he knows what NY'ers actually eat

tbh
ordering ANYTHING at White Castle
(even, lets say, like 4 Impossible Burgers w fries)
would get you more cred in NYC than ordering a bagel
would

Orange Julius ruined that move for everyone else lol
White Castle would be the move right now

are you trying to win real NYer's or transplants?
Despite what Blake said
Plain or Poppy Seed bagel w lox or a shmear
are the ones that the'll get you real NYer vote

...and I'll get some rice & beans from El Castillo De Jagua
& some Sichuan on 86th St in Bensonhurst to make sure all based are covered...

in 2025 a bagel won't win you the race

I'm ordering a veggie roti
from Ali's in Brooklyn
&
a masala dosa
from the Ganesh Temple in Queens
and... to make sure mf's know I know

a slice from Di Fara's

I got this in the bag lol

I'm a quasi-vegan so no lox
so I'm going to
Ess A Bagel
and asking for
pumpernickel w (tofu) cream cheese
or
PB&J on cinnamon raisin

the first time I met Nels was at the 2nd Knitting Factory location in Manhattan - right after he'd finished playing a show there with Mike Watt's band.
Instead of talking about the show I'd just seen
I led with "I loved you and your brother on that JAH Band album"

this is the energy we need

Bombshell DHS sweep in Minneapolis-St. Paul finds 50% of immigrants had committed immigration fraud USCIS visited 1,000 homes across Minneapolis and St. Paul in the last two weeks and found “nearly 50%” of inhabitants were engaged in some form of immigration fraud.

I hate to ask this
but
are we SURE we can accept these numbers at face value?
Who vetted them?
idk...
This seems like marketing, a roll-out, to me.
And guess what they're selling?
ICE in the Twin Cities

nypost.com/2025/09/30/u...

New York City!
I'm having a listening party for my album
Amasia: Anamibia Session 2
on October 14th
author/curator Sheeree Renee Thomas
& Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky
will be there with me
come through!
www.fouroneoneprojects.org/events/amasi...

fun fact:
Bernard Fowler
who was in the early hip-hop movie "Beat Street"
was the singer in Larry Levan's Peech Boys & On U Sound's Tackhead

and is now singing with the Rolling Stones

like Nas & Mobb Deep
grew up in the Queensbridge Houses

Orange Julius telegraphed bad numbers were coming when he said he wanted to stop quarterly reporting

comparing the Pitchfork Hip-hop Critics vs Readers Top 100
I see that
1) Queensbridge won both polls
2) the reader's faves are 10 years older than I expected
having said that
3) I'd say that the reader's list is better overall --- though there are heinous choices & omissions on both

Sora 2
alternative fact generator

I thought it was fascinating that Orange Julius was talking his s#it to a bunch of guys who proved they can't be bullied decades ago. Plus his lack of loyalty is well known. Maybe some of them will buy in, but it's hard to see this playing out the way he wants it to.

hard to decide who's been a bigger disappointment - Adams or Jeffries? I guess Jeffries bc we knew Adams was a cop... we didn't know Jeffries had so little backbone

I hope it's clear to everyone now that Trump really is going for it - he's trying to become a dictator. I don't know if he'll succeed, but he's working to install himself as an autocrat unaccountable to voters. And he's weaponizing the military against Americans who oppose him as part of that effort

🫂✨

on one hand
the idea that US troops should be training in America's cities
is really frightening.
on the other
the road from "should" to "will be" isn't necessarily straight & smooth
it is often a winding one with potholes that damage your vehicle beyond repair

This is a really useful style guide.
I had to unlearn some of the cliched tropes that you find listed here the hard way over the course of writing my book.