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At this wondrous time of the year, many of us worldwide become nostalgic about our youth when we looked forward to everything Santa would deliver underneath our respective Christmas trees. If you were like me, I'd leave cookies out on my living room table next to the wood stove and getting up every couple of hours to see if I could sneak a peek at old Saint Nick, but to no avail I would never catch a glimpse of the jolly one.
Alas, it wasn't until years later that I was told there wasn't a Santa Claus. I already had a clue that there wasn't one due to the fact Santa's handwriting resembled my mother's and father's cursive styles. Nonetheless, the joy of Christmas during my youth was inescapable. There were three main reasons why Christmas was my favorite time of the year. First, the anticipation of presents I was going to receive. Second, the amount of time my family would spend together eating good food and laughing at one another. Last, but not least, the classic music that we would listen to days leading up to Christmas and a couple of days after.
There is something special when you hear the legendary, incomparable vocals of
The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson among many others singing your favorite holiday tunes. Christmas music gives the holiday a deeper meaning especially if you're an aficionado of high quality recordings. Below are my top 10 Christmas offerings that still bring my soul indescribable joy.
Keri Hilson doesn’t particularly care what you think, especially if you think she’s wrong. The 28-year-old is a regular (and not always unwitting) magnet for controversy but claims to be nonplussed by the chirping of her naysayers. “I don’t feel backlash”, she tells SoulCulture bluntly, “I rarely feel it”.
Given that in the past two years, Hilson has been attacked for her choice of collaborators, accused of cynically sexing-up her image, and disparaged for taking perceived indirect shots at her female peers, it’s lucky she deals so level-headedly with the running commentary.
Before there was Hype Williams, Little X and Benny Boom, there was Lionel C. Martin.
From 1987 to present, Martin’s videography reads like a scroll of all of the great talents of the past 25 years in urban and popular music. Martin is responsible for giving urban music videos life and authenticity at a time where Hip Hop and R&B desperately needed a pioneer to deliver a quality product for the world to see. Martin has produced videos for TLC, Stevie Wonder, R. Kelly, Public Enemy, Bell Biv Devoe, Big Daddy Kane, Jay-Z, Keith Sweat, Toni Braxton, Boyz II Men, SWV, En Vogue, MC Shan, Jodeci, Mariah Carey, Jill Scott, Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, Notorious B.I.G., Father MC, Hi-Five, Tupac, N’Sync, Backstreet Boys and many more.
Martin, a native of Queens, NY, was a trailblazing force in the 1980s when he helped launch the Video Music Box channel with his childhood friend, Ralph McDaniels in 1984. The Video Music Box channel was only seen in the Tri-State area at the time. The Tri-State area consists of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Martin was one of the first hosts on the show and his moniker was (The VidKid). The channel would play every Hip Hop video from the popular artists of the time period.
After its inaugural year, Martin devised an idea to expand the channel’s brand and this move helped to make the channel achieve legendary status. Martin alongside McDaniels made the decision to travel extensively through the emerging hip-hop scene to cover parties and shows to illustrate the influence that Hip Hop culture was having on New York City and the surrounding areas. It would prove to be pivotal in shaping the career path of Martin.
During this time, the Video Music Box channel was the only Hip Hop program in syndication on public television in the United States. It gave a voice and face to a culture that would begin to dominate the mainstream in the forthcoming years. Whilst working on the Video Music Box channel, Martin would see the types of videos that would come in from the artists and thought that the Hip Hop culture needed to have better representation for the art form. This is where his voyage of directing music videos begins.
Recently, SoulCulture sat down to talk with Martin about his contributions to urban music videos, behind the scene stories and the importance of maintaining pride in urban culture.