We Major (Lazer): Nina Sky On Their Own Time and So Flavor-full

In ancient folklore, they say that the witching hour represents the moment when black magic is at its most powerful. Cast a spell, cast off an albatross...

If that's true, then the soreceresses of Nina Sky, Natalie and Nicole Albino, have been boiling up a serious bitches' brew.

To fly-by-night fans, the Queens, N.Y.-born duo haven't made noise since 2004's super-hit "Move Ya Body," but the ladies spent the last five years or so making a label change (Universal to Polo Grounds/J Records), writing music, DJ-ing, re-mixing for artists like The-Dream and J.Holiday, and touring like mad.

Homegrown but Puerto Rican by blood, they have that quintessential New York City-native something that a million June Ambroses couldn't recreate if you ain't have it already (They shout out Pio Pio, for goodness sake, lol! Okaay, A.).



That je ne sais quoi extends from the external - a certain way we put our look together - to the internal - a melting pot mentality that sees culture in every quarter.

In October, their oft-delayed sophomore album, Starting Today, is slated to drop and anyone who's heard early singles like the sugary electro-pop "Beautiful People" or the R&B-flavored "On Some Bullshit", can attest to the growth. Even the vocals are fuller, more lush. (This is the music Diddy wishes Cassie could make.)

On the significance of the album title they've said, "We believe if you dwell on the past, you can never move forward. Our songs now are about putting past experiences to rest and approaching life with a positive outlook.”

Nowhere is this forward outlook more apparent than their collabo with Major Lazer (feat. Ricky Blaze) on the flavor-full "Keep it Goin' Louder", off Diplo and Switch's dancehall-drenched Gunz Don't Kill People, Lazers Do. Pitchfork calls it one of the best pop songs of the year.

Bitches. Brew.

Just For Kicks

It's Autumn in New York and that always gets me thinking about fall dressing. Some weeks ago, I was stopped at a traffic light in the West 50s and noticed a girl probably in her early teens, dirty-blonde hair cut into a messy pageboy, pale skin, freckles, and clad in a tissue-thin grey shirtdress. Like she'd been plucked out of a Norman Rockwell tableau.

Then as if to dot the "i" on the post-war American girl look, I looked down and realized she had on grey cap-toe canvas sneakers, a single shoelace trailing behind her.

Like the perfect black ballet flat, vintage dime-store canvas sneakers have been my obsession for a couple years now. (Guys in Chucks give me butterflies...but that's another story) I just think nothing says Autumn like warm layers, a boyfriend jean, and battered Keds. That's a detail up top of Rockwell's 1964 The Problem We All Live With, and a 1993 Bloomie's ad for the classic shoe.

Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency...We Fall For Mad Men

Elegant. Throwback. Sexy.

While it's impossible for me to conjure the early 1960s without also confronting the spectre of fire hoses, barking dogs, and black bodies swinging in Birmingham, AMC's "Mad Men," now in its third season and unfolding in 1963, transports, leaving the historical ugliness largely off-set.

These days the scripted television landscape is rife with sociopaths, blood-suckers, and men in their prolonged adolescence, but with "Mad Men" there are ad-ults (you have to put the emphasis in its proper place, laughs). The writing is impeccable of course, and the exceptionally polished fashion (pencil skirts, jumpers, shifts, red lipstick, men's suiting and cardigans...) makes me yearn for something bygone.

It's been an added bonus to watch as the writers revisit iconic American brands and businesses in the guise of Sterling Cooper accounts: John Deere, Madison Square Garden, even the little-known "Patio," which was featured on one of my favorite epis so far this season.

Patio, in real-life, marked Pepsi's foray into diet cola in 1963, an appeal to women watching their waistlines. Execs changed the name from Patio to Diet Pepsi after winning thumbs for the low-cal beverage. And I only know this because the Queens Museum mounted an exhibit on it - but Pepsi Co. was also the first to train and hire an all-black Sales team during the Jim Crow era to market and sell to African-American customers. The advertising they created is fascinating to examine. Those gentleman became the first of a generation of black corporate Ad Men in the 1940s and early 1950s.

(Hey DJ) Hard Hittin Harry, Play That Song That Kept Me Dancin All Night Long

Recently swept into Deity. It was night, and it was hot. Feeling flushed, I slipped into the ladies' lounge to dab the dew from my lip. At the door, I found the reverential spirit in which the place had been named, no christened, extended to the loos, which were appropriately marked "gods" and "goddesses."

And although it was Sunday, the only laying on of hands happening at this Downtown Brooklyn boite was between the women and the men. Did I mention that it was hot? Well... It was many things...

Presiding over this mass of undulating brown bodies gathered on two floors was DJ Hard Hittin Harry. Part DJ - part beat minister, the Brick City, N.J., native (by way of Port-au-Prince, Haiti) had even those of us who'd bypassed the rum punch feeling punch-drunk off his unimpeachable set list.

Helpless to shake the sounds from my step, I went in search of DJ HHH. "Before any party you can usually catch me in front of my computer downloading music and organizing my playlists for the night," said the DJ (below, c.Stella Magloire), who wears his considerable soul, reggae, hip hop, and rock stripes without pretentiousness.

I asked him to create a playlist for BGNB comprised of the 10 songs he'd play if he could only go with a dime. The veteran selecta, who counts turntable icons Kool DJ Red Alert, Mr. Magic & Marley Marl, and Frankie Crocker among his influences, did not disappoint:

DJ HARD HITTIN HARRY UNITY SOUND PLAYLIST

Win Some - Courtney John
Time To Win - Half Pint
King Pharo - Everton Blender
Why Can't We - Jah Cure
Many Things - Seun Kuti (pictured, top) & Fela's Egypt 80
Amour De Nombakele - Pamelo Mounk'a
Premier Gaou - Magic System
K'em Pa Sote - Boukman Eksperyans
Love You No More - Shabba Ranks, featuring Mavado
Mama's Love - Mavado

For more, tune into the DJ's weekly online TV mixshow, The Global Jam Session, Tuesdays, 2-5 p.m., www.axiomonline.tv. (Peace to Coup D'Etat Brooklyn.)

Where Do Broken Icons Go? To Oprah's Show. Whitney Houston Opens Up.

One year, for my catholic school's annual Talent Show, I decided I'd perform a lip-synced rendition of Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know?" So I come home the day of the show (after weeks of rehearsal) with a copy of the single and told my Grams she had to do my hair JUST LIKE WHITNEY. [Laughs]

My septugenarian West Indian grandmother was all, "little young ladies don't go out with their hair out!" We argued, argued, and then compromised on a single braid. She tied a long swath of lace ribbon around my big head and sent me on my way with my pastel leggings, boots, and chunky sweater. (Placed first by the way! Haha.)

But my Whitney thing was always more than poster-hanging fandom; I adored this woman. During her surprisingly candid interview today with Oprah Winfrey, I remembered why. Whitney, looking luminous in a chocolate-bronze shift, remarked, "I didn't know about the largeness of what they call icon."

The Newark, N.J., native who grew up waiting in the wings of fame (mom Cissy a well-known gospel singer, and cousin Dionne Warwick a chart-topping recording artist), admitted nothing prepares you for success on that scale - All At Once.

If you wrote her off that season Bravo aired "Being Bobby Brown," where she prowled Atlanta in a tired fur coat, drowning in drugs and dysfunction with Mr. "My Prerogative," O's two-part season premiere is worth watching.

'Labor Day Parade, Rest in Peace Bob Marley'

It's a rite of passage each year for Caribbean ex-patriots and their American-born hyphenates to revel in roots when summer skips off into memory.

Eastern Parkway becomes a corridor lined with stalls of our oxtail, rice, griot, lambi, bottles of sorrel...This season I'm honoring this city, making sure he knows I never take him granted.

I went to Carnival this year after sitting out a few and as always I was so up. (Yeah, it can be a grope-fest, but so can the subway. And Bloomberg has barricaded it and squeezed some of the lawlessness out, probably for the gawking tourists and the gentrifying set.)

Snapped a few flicks and wanted to post a couple. Did you know that the ritual J'Ouvert (or juvee) celebration that kicks off at about 2 in the morning, the night before the Labor Day Parade has its origins in the French West Indies, when Haitian slaves (and those from Dominica, Guadeloupe, etc.) spilled into the avenues to fete emancipation?

At the parade this year, revelers in fitteds and jeans came splattered in the ceremonial powders, mud, oil, and general goodwill. What a sight to behold.

I Really Dig Your Company...Your Peace Mentality

This one is for my girls. Whether it was when we meet up talking late night over Earl Grey or burning up the celly, I hear you when you say you're missing that certain something.

These days, fellas are too often operating from a shopworn, one-size-fits-Every-Girl manual. Or maybe it seems like they barely scratch your surface. Missed connections, indeed.

I always thought Jill Scott had it right: When it comes to romance, a walk in the park after dark can be sublime. Starting with a simple spot to spark conversation can be both memorable and effective.

While I certainly appreciate a guy who'll whisk me off to the Griffin while it's still in previews or make reservations at warmly-lit Il Buco, one of my best (PG) dates ever started casually at a pub on the L.E.S. and wound its way to my companion's tiny downtown apartment, where the books were so plentiful they doubled as furniture.

He fed me left-over birthday cake from a pastry box and then thumbed through three compact photo albums' worth of his history. As nondescript music played on his MAC, we dialogued until morning began to knock at the windows.
***
When I was little, I used to watch after-school re-runs of "Three's Company" with my grandmother, who spoke no English. The sexual innuendo was mostly over my head (and hers?), but I loved what I thought was a reenactment of how grown folk dated.

You know?? [Laughs] Janet or Chrissy would be on the rotary phone 4, 5 nights a week like, "Okay, I'll meet you at 8 at the Regal Beagle." The lively bar was just up the stairs from their beachfront Santa Monica, Calif., apartment. They'd get off work, throw on the high-waisted skirt, tan wedge heels, and go.

The Regal Beagle was low-key atmosphere, no prix-fixe menus or hipster cred.

But now I think the Regal Beagle is a state of mind. It just means you're open to possibility.

I Think I'm From Where Dreams Are Made. The Lights Will Inspire You.

First things first.

One Hand in the Air for all of us Born Yankees, we the few New York City natives, who know what it is to walk by skyscrapers and never look up because we were too busy slinging tokens and bus passes, stopping at the deli for a beef patty and a quarter water.

Shout to the barber shop with the beautiful black men getting the edge-up, to the corner where the grizzled elders are politickin as the scent of Nag Champa wafts overhead, to the beauty shops like Harlem Berry where the ablutions happen over the sink. You might have relocated to Houston, W. VA, FL, no matter, I bet you still bleed blue. And I bet that Blueprint 3 is on repeat today.



As the still agile Jigga Man preps his show at the Garden (I see you, Greg!) tonight, benefitting the city's bravest and finest, I wonder where were you on 9/11? I was on Morningside Heights and some of us converged on my friend M's Uptown pad overlooking the George Wash. Smoke billowing even from that vantage point, we prayed, talked, reflected, cried, called out incantations. A Towering loss.

Allow me to reintroduce myself: I'm from the Empire State, most definitely from New York and I go by the name of Black Girl Named Becky. If this is your first visit with me, wipe your feet, welcome. To everyone else who's supported me, I appreciate you. I'm back.

You coming?