You Think What

On Sunday evening, February 6, 2023, during the 2023 Grammys Awards Show, Stevie Wonder invited Chris Stapleton to collaborate with him in a stellar rendition
of Wonder’s 1973 hit “Higher Ground”. The performance got the whole audience on its feet.
WATCH the video. Sing along. Lyrics provided below.

Higher Ground Lyrics
[Verse 1]
People keep on learning
Soldiers keep on warring
World keep on turning
‘Cause it won’t be too long

[Verse 2]
Powers keep on lying
While your people keep on dying
World keep on turning
‘Cause it won’t be too long

[Chorus]
I’m so darn glad he let me try it again
Because my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin
I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then
Going to keep on trying
‘Til I reach my highest ground

[Verse 3]
Teachers keep on teaching
Preachers keep on preaching
World keep on turning
‘Cause it won’t be too long
Oh no

[Verse 4]
Lovers keep on loving
Believers keep on believing
Sleepers just stop sleeping
‘Cause it won’t be too long
Oh no

[Chorus]
I’m so glad that he let me try it again
‘Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin
I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then
Going to keep on trying
‘Til I reach my highest ground

News of famous backsides: Earlier in the summer, while performing her world tour in Copenhagen, entertainer Beyonce, Mrs. Shawn Carter, was touched on the derriere by an over exuberant male fan.

Toni Braxton, who is the eldest child of the family featured in the cable teevee reality show ” Braxton Family Values”, was recently performing in New Jersey when she began to show her a$$. Watch the video…btw the TMZ folks have the best jokes describing Braxton, and her skimpy costume.

During her performance of ‘Irreplaceable’ in June at Copenhagen’s Forum venue, Beyonce – clad in a blue bedazzled bodysuit – approached the front of the stage to share the microphone with her fans so they could sing along to her hit song. (We really do not like when music artists share the microphone with the audience unless the artist is Jeffrey Osborne, ‘member him– he’s still kickin’ it, and we’re singing “The Woo-Woo-Woo Song”.)

However, one audacious male audience member became rambunctious when he reached out to pat the superstar’s ‘Bootylicious’ backside.

The fierce feminist, Mrs Carter, clearly wasn’t about to allow any other than her husband Jay-Z touch ”this jelly”, wheeling around to scold the lecherous concert-goer.

The moment, caught on camera and subsequently posted on YouTube, sees her announce, ”I will have you escorted out right now, alright?”, before swiftly resuming her performance.

When we heard the reports of an overzealous fan touching Beyonce’s posterior during a recent performance of her Mrs. Carter World Tour, we admittedly began to imagine what this anonymous man would say if we were fortunate to nab an exclusive interview with the chap.

We imagine it would go something like this: (more…)

In a series of games over a two week period the Miami Heat professional basketball team has won again. This time they vanquished the Texas team from San Antonio by inning four games out of seven to become champions.

LeBron James scores 37 as Miami outlasts San Antonio 95-88 in Game 7  in Miami, Florida. It was a pretty big deal for James and his team mates to win the title…again! (more…)

Our friend magician and champion public speaker, Ron Melvin also known as Mystical Mel, found this video. We think it provides, in an exaggerated way exactly the level of frustration, “Voice Recognition Hell”, we’ve all likely experienced when dealing with devices designed to recognize speech in order to function…whether telephone prompts for customer service, car phones, lights or even televisions.

We hope you’ll agree …this skit from the popular BBC  Scotland comedy sketch show “Burnistoun” is hilarious! (more…)

The staff of YouThinkWhat is weighing in on the controversy of whom to cast in the film role of one of our legendary musical heroes, the late Nina Simone. In the American Black African Community she is known as the High Priestess of Soul. Nina Simone is internationally renown for her activism, her love of classical music and her innovative American jazz musical stylings; she called jazz music America’s classical music.

As of today no release date for the film has been announced. It is reportedly in post production. We hope it remains on the shelf. This statement is disparaging,  and justifiably so because there was a time in Hollyweird when movie executives did not believe audiences would pay to see blacks on screen…at least not an entire feature length project with blacks, Negroes or coloreds in major roles. In those times the films remained in the can, on the shelf for years awaiting distribution to the public for viewing. How times have changed.

Nina Simone is an American music icon molded from the depths of the artistic joy, the angst, the pain, the struggle to be black, female and bipolar in the United States of America. Our current and future generations must be given the complete story of who she was and what she contended with to become the legendary music royalty she is. (more…)

 On April 28, 2012, comedian, tv personality and writer, Jimmy Kimmel said and did this at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. when he was the featured act:
“I also want to thank Mr. Mills, my 10th grade high school history teacher, who said I’d never amount to anything if I kept screwing around in class. Mr. Mills, I’m about to high-five the President of the United States.”    Kimmel then high-fived the President, Barack Obama,  returned to the podium, and concluded with, “Eat it, Mills.”

Around here, at YouThinkWhat, our staff often pose the question in jest, particularly after conversing with someone who doesn’t know what they do not know:

“Do two people who do not know what they’re talking about know more or less than one person who does not know what he is talking about?”

Jimmy Kimmel, one of our favorite late night comedians, provides the answer to the question in his regularly featured comic segment, “Lie Witness News”; it’s a series of comic video sketches which spoof the news format, Eye Witness News, created in the 1960s by teevee news executive Al Primo.  He’s also the innovative  genius who brought to the world of television news, “happy talk”. “Happy talk”, as Primo named it is what news anchors and weather or sports presenters are doing when they chit and chat with one another like old friends at a cocktail party or other social events, before, during and after delivering the news of the day . (We think “Lie Witness News” is what viewers are getting everyday from the mainstream media. All the networks serve daily lies created by and promulgated for the governments.)

In a two to three minute video featured in Kimmel’s “Lie Witness News” segment, a question is asked of the man/woman on the street being interviewed; typically the person(s) has no clue, however the respondent forges ahead with a made up answer in order to appear hip, happenin’, informed, and socially acceptable, while not realizing they’d be better off being socially awkward, admitting they are uninformed on the topic, rather than looking the total fool as they endlessly bloviate about a topic of which they know absolutely nothing. The result is two to three minutes of great comedy.

In the following example we see people telling us about bands they enjoy at this year’s Coachella Music Festival held annually in Fornicalia. On the face of it their responses sound credible…except the bands are made up! They do not exist. Jimmy Kimmel explains as he introduces the piece. (more…)

“I saw the Village as a place to escape to in order to express yourself.”  ~ Richie Havens in his 2008 biography.

Richie Havens, the very first musician to perform during the 1969 Woodstock music festival held on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in the town of Bethel, New York, near White Lake, New York, has died of a sudden heart attack at his home. The beloved American folk singer, songwriter, guitarist, and activist passed away on Earth Day.

“Say not in grief, ‘he is no more’, but live in thankfulness that he was.” ~ Unknown

The event, also known as the Woodstock Music Festival; An Aquarian Exposition: Three Days of Peace and Music, was a turning point in his career.

One of the four festival producers, Michael Lang said in his book  “The Road to Woodstock”, he’d selected Havens to open what would become a historic event, “because of his calm but powerful demeanor.”

Havens sang for several hours due to travel delays affecting the arrival of the next act. He sang for nearly three hours. Basically, Richie Havens had to kill time as the opening act during this seminal event.

“So I’d go back and sing three more. This happened six times. So I sung every song I knew.” ~ Richie Havens in a 2006 interview with NPR.

The most amazing point of his performance was his ability to improvise a song based on the Negro spiritual, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,”; as a consequence the improvisation, known as “Freedom” became an anthem for the times. It is one song for which Havens became famous.

Richie Havens was well known for his versions of tunes made popular by such varied group and artists such as The Beatles, “Here Comes the Sun”; the Bee Gees, “I Started A Joke”; 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love”.  He covered tunes like Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”;  James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain”;  “Tightrope,” written by Leon Russell;  Van Morrison’s  composition”Tupelo Honey”, as well as  Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” and another Dylan creation “Just Like A Woman “.

“I really sing songs that move me. I’m not in show business; I’m in the communications business. That’s what it’s about for me.” ~ Richie Havens, singer, songwriter, activist, humanitarian in an interview with The Denver Post (more…)

On Sunday evening, February 25th 2013 in Hollywood, California at the annual American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the 85th time they are convening, actors, movie stars, technicians of very craft will be present to see who receives the coveted Oscar for outstanding achievement in various categories of the motion picture industry.

The following video created by Nelson Carvajal shows 84 Best Picture winners… (more…)

We’ve been wondering what Savion Glover , the  choreographer, dancer and actor, has been up to lately.
Jenet Dechary, our friend who writes a  performing arts column for the Arlington, Virginia Performing Arts Examiner, provides an update.

“Tap dancer and choreographer Savion Glover, and tapper Marshall Davis, Jr., keep the beat with their feet. And they’re bringing that beat to George Mason University’s Center for the Arts on Sunday, January 20, at 7PM.

The show, titled “SoLe Sanctuary,” is a hats off to past tap masters Sammy Davis, Jr., Jimmy Slyde, and Gregory Hines, among others.

Glover, whose mentor and teacher was Gregory Hines, uses his artistry to connect tap to its African roots, working from the principle of the dancer as musical instrument.

“SoLe Sanctuary” receives its Washington, DC, area premiere at GMU following its 2011 opening at the Joyce Theatre in New York City.

Glover, who came to tap through drumming, has received acclaim for his live performances in “Black and Blue,” “Jelly’s Last Jam” and “Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk’. (more…)