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La negra here likes her gossip and pop culture blogs. After a day of being high on mothering, politics and web development I have to wind down on a more earthy note. My nightly treats include my first blog love, The Corsair (exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment) [7], my new BFF Perez Hilton [8], Ms Thing Miu Von Furstenberg [9] and my new loves, D Listed [10], Crunk and Disorderly [11], Concrete Loop [12]. Then there's FourFour [13].

Rich Juzwiak has become my go-to guy for the hysterically funny blow-by-blow recaps he turns out every week for America's Top Model [14], Project Runway [15] and the "because the parody writes itself" of Being Bobby Brown [16]. Rich has turned TV digesting into a comedic tour de force.

He also has become one of my music sources. It's his writing of pop music, sometimes supplying his own mashups and mixes that makes this man shine as a pop culture critic.

It's no wonder I have turned into Steve Jobs wet dream.

In his latest installment, Rich tackles Remy Ma and in the process, the whole phenomenon of "butches vs. bitches" embodied by women rappers like Remy, Queen Latifah, Little Kim and Foxy Brown.

[via fourfour: Some things about Remy [17]]:

Artists like Brat, Lyte and Latifah were all young when they started -- at best, the above examples illustrate girls turning into women. Growing up means change, especially when it comes to sexuality and just being comfortable with your body. But still, when previously ignored sexuality is all of a sudden thrust to the forefront of music and image, you wonder how much is expression and how much is put out to quash the rumors, to be more accessible to middle America (it's sort of amazing that these girls are allowed to be as butch as they are upon entry -- is it the major labels they're signed to saying, "OK, be you, but if you aren't multi-platinum in two albums, you're doing it our way"?). Even Eve, who's always mixed hot and rough, looks positively domestic compared to when she debuted on the scene.

It's hard to tell just how much of this informs Remy's music and image, though she does tell us, point blank, that she's "not gay" when she's at a titty bar in her hustling anthem "Secret Location." Remy's there just to get drunk, just to hang with the boys ("See most niggas call a girl when they wanna give a dick / My shorties call me when they wanna get a brick," are the lines that start that track). Regardless, There's Something About Remy is a remarkable balancing act. It's not always great -- the tough beats shift into a monotonous pummeling and start to sag the middle -- but Remy is never less than fascinating. Something has, in fact, so many things -- bangers, gangsta tales, R&B-blessed love joints and, most daringly, confessions (the abortion track, "What's Going On," yet another invocation of Gwendolyn Brooks' "The Mother", is the emotional high point and a total risk, so much so that Grae's similarly themed "Forgive Me" didn't even make it onto her album, and that was released on an indie). I wonder where Remy can go from here, if she can continue to be such a broad broad or if she'll eventually be balled up and tossed as a more easily digestible pill to all the people who won't end up buying Something.

By the time I was done reading the damn post, I was rummaging iTunes --although the following links are going to take you to Amazon because ... ahem ... I'm an affiliate and mamacita gets a few cents this way.

So I started at There's Something About Remy: Based on a True Story [18]. I have to give this girl her due and it's going to take me a while to digest the whole album but, my friends, wow.

I think it was Rich who made a great observation about Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey : They have amazing voices but they can't sing. With Remy you don't only one of the most sultry voices this side of MJB but she can sing and phrase in meaningful ways that Aguilera and Carey never will.

Once hooked on Ms. Ma, I decided, WTF and went ahead and got Jesuschrist himself, Kanye West's Late Registration [19]. Can we talk about the skits? And once you're done tripping on Diamonds from Sierra Leone, just feel free to wig out in the comments section.

From there, I went on over to John Legend's Get Lifted [20]. If Kanye reminds me of Marvin, Legend is definitely Stevie Wonder's heir. Only hard core.

I also got two from MJB, the woman who is one my inspirations, Mary J. Blige. Can we talk about the drama in No more Drama? Mr. Man here doesn't understand why if it's called No more drama, it's such an operatic song. Whatever. After all these years, I just don't waste time exaplaining. So I treated myself to Love & Life [21] and The Breakthrough [22].

The cherry on top? I got Farley Jackmaster Funk's single "As always" (found in Trax Classix: Farley Jackmaster Funk [23]). Grok, how I love to dance to that song!

Last but not least, Prince's Musicology [24]. I needed to listen something good and awesome from the man himself because I was sent a sample of one of his latest songs, &s=143441">The Amo Corazon [25], and I got so depressed at how bad it was that I decided, the hell with it, what's $9.99 more for a masterpiece? If you want to hear the master at his most sublime, go get thee to a Musicology [26] sample immediately.

And this, my friends, is what the web, blogs and iTunes were made for. From one blog post, you do the math about how much money I put into Steve Jobs pocket. Let's just say that, if Jobs reads this, his loins will most certainly be happy to see me.

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