Fat Tuesday: Mardi Gras New Orleans

Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday a national tradition especially in the local community of New Orleans famous Burbon Street. But with the devastation that was Hurrican Katrina also came another devastation. With so much attention on the community from the Katrina media coverage, also came the religious outcry "They are a town of Sin, and we must stop the debotchery" and "God will punished them for their sins!"

We were watching Ellen Degeneres on TV and saw that she was wearing a DEFEND New Orleans T-shirt for her Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday special. and that is what we feel we must do.

The people and visitors of New Orleans have every right to party as they see fit, it's their tradition, their identity and it is what makes them a unique city with a deep musical and cultural heritage. Their once a year celebration is a huge cultural gathering and tradition that helps bring tons of money to their city. It is a festival that makes their city unique and fascinating, and a city worth viviting. With such a rich and diverse musical heritage the city has become a haven for some of the best Jazz, and contemporary music artists. This heritage should not be destroyed simply for the sake of religious fanatics, that don't understand that the celebration also has partial roots in religion as well.

Many times the most religious people overstep their boundries and always forget the One teaching in the bible more than any other teaching, "Judge not lest ye be judged" If these sinners want to sin let them, will they not have to be judged later for their actions today? Having the government step in to regulate Fat Tuesday simply means an unconstitutional and possibly expensive endeavor.

Lets just leave it at, if you don't want to be a part of it then just don't be a part of it. But don't try and stop others from doing what they want. Just look the other way, stay in your home, don't ewatch the footage and soon it will be Ash Wednesday and you can pray for all their eternally damned souls.

- Vanessa V. of The Great Hip Hop Blogspot

Pre Grammy Drama: Chris Brown Beats Down Singer Rihanna Before The Grammies

LOS ANGELES, February 8 (UPI) -- Singer Chris Brown faces a possible felony charge in connection with an incident involving singer Rihanna, Los Angeles police sources said Sunday.
Bail was set at $50,000 Sunday evening as the Grammy-nominated R&B star was booked on suspicion of making felony criminal threats, LAPD sources told the Los Angeles Times. Brown, 19, turned himself in to police Sunday evening at the Los Angeles Police Department Wilshire Division station.

Citing sources familiar with the investigation, the Times said police were investigating the incident as a felony domestic violence case. Law enforcement sources told TMZ police received a call about the incident at 12:30 a.m. Sunday, and arrived to find a woman who claimed Brown, 19, assaulted her during an argument in a car.

Police said in a statement the woman was Brown's girlfriend, the singer Rihanna, whose full name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty, the Times reported. The woman reportedly had visible injuries and Brown was not at the scene when police arrived.
Recording Academy officials announced Rihanna, 20, would not perform as scheduled Sunday at the Grammy Awards. Soul singer Al Green took her spot on the show, the Times said.
TMZ said when it contacted Rihanna's representatives for a statement regarding the incident, a publicist said: "Rihanna is well. Thank you for your concern and support."
A spokesman for Brown's record label did not respond to a Times request for comment on the report.

Rihanna and Brown were nominated for the Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals -- Rihanna for "If I Never See Your Face Again," which she recorded with Maroon 5, and Brown for "No Air," which he performed with Jordin Sparks. The Grammy went to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss for "Rich Woman."

Rihanna was also up for best dance recording for "Disturbia." The Grammy in that category went to Daft Punk for "Harder Better Faster Stronger

Las Vegas Nightclub and Midwest Nightclub Tour

In January 2009 DJ Emir Did a quick mini midwest tour Droping his genius mixes, DJ abilities and remixes on fans in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Las Vegas.

Before heading back to Denver DJ Emir's last stop was Las Vegas where his style of mixing really took off. Completely frenzying the crowd at all three spots he mixed at, Emir really put it down hard on the turntables the entire week. He must have really been feeling it when he was in Vegas this time cause he was killing it with the live remixes, mixes, juggles and scratches.

On Saturday Emir must have been digging deep into his repertoir because he even surprised us with some of the insane mixes he put together. I think a few people were surprised to find out DJ Emir resides in Denver, They just couldn't believe Denver had such a talented DJ hidden in what they thought was a One horse town. DJ Emir's originally from Puerto Rico and New York, but that will be our little secret ;).

Our blog team was given a huge amount of mixtape CDs from Emir as promotional giveaways just a month earlier. We hadn't had a chance to really hand out a ton of them so when Emir invited us to meet up with him in Las vegas for the last part of his Midwest tour we figured we'd bring some along. Knowing the team would bump into several hundred people throughout this trip we brought with us over 1000 of DJ Emir's hot mixtape cds which we gave away to Emir's new fans and a few familiar faces as well.

Talks are in the works to haveDJ Emir come back to Las Vegas a little more often. We also dropped Ironman mixtape CDs at many of the other casinos he wasn't performing at in an attempt to help One of our favorite DJs pick up a few Vegas residencies or special events. (We'll keep you all posted)

On his days off we met up with Emir and we all visited other nightclubs and other casinos to check out what we expected to be awsome nights of great dJs and entertainment. But we were sadly dissapointed by many of the spots as their deejays simply didn't match up in intensity, style or ability to many of the other DJs we have become accustomed to hearing.

Las Vegas, known for its huge casinos and lavish nightclubs had fallen off a little on some of their nightclub DJ standards. Lazy deejays were croping up at the most unlikely nightclubs. We spoke to some associates from LA about how our friend was dissapointed about the Deejays in LA when he first moved out there. They mentioned they too were dissapointed when they first moved out to LA as well, we mentioned our surprise dissapointment over the Las Vegas DJ Scene. That's when they suggested it's partly because Vegas is importing the same DJs from the Los Angeles scene. Apparently Vegas has fallen victim to flying out a few of the lazy Deejays of Los Angeles. Which is a shame since there are many other great deejays out there that are far better deserving of a residency in one of the entertainment capitals of the world.

We did however find A few other exceptional DJs during the nights, One other hot DJ out in Vegas was DJ Serafin of the Crooklynclan/CrackforDJs crews. DJ Serafin's mix style energy and enthusiasm was much like DJ Emir's style of mixing. DJ Serafin really knew how to rock the crowd and reaffirmed our faith in Las Vegas nightclubs and Las Vegas DJs. After hearing him live we can now add DJ Serafin to our growing list of favorite nightclub DJs which now include: DJ Serrafin, DJ AM, DJ Craze, DJ Emir, DJ Z-Trip, DJ Vajra, and DJ Sniper.

Picture of DJ Serafin

We were unable to catch DJ AM this time arround but he always puts on a great show as does DJ-Ztrip, we were fortunate enough to catch both of those guys at Beta nightclub in Denver when they came through this past year. Z-trip signed DJ Emir's jacket, so I guess you could say Z-Trip is also One of our our favorite DJ's favorite DJ :) LOL



DJ Emir Made some decent cash while in Vegas but being a gambleing city well lets just say he reinvested in Vegas nightlife. Lesson learned, we hope, next time just keep him busy deejaying and watching Vegas shows, no gambling. PS- when in Vegas always take payment in a check... LOL

Of course Vegas is also well known for gambling as well as for it's great live performance shows We decided to catch the Circue Du Soleil show Zumanity which was playing at the New York, New York Hotel It was a funny sexy show with plenty of the unique and insane talents and performers you come to expect from a Circue Du Soliel Show.

This particular show wasn't the one to take the kiddies to with its very erotic displays and very sexual nature. We rather enjoyed the show and the abilities of the performers. We were also very impressed with the strength and balance of all the performers especially the strength of the smallest of them and the lady that did the flying ribbon act both their shoulders had to be extremely powerful to withstand the forces they were exerting on themselves with the huge drops and sudden stops they were making with the cloth.



Hotel New York New York. Each of the hotel towers is actually fashioned after New York Citys most famous downtown buildings. And there is a huge rollercoaster that you can ride all day. When I say huge it's one of the bigger ones we've seen in our travels.

We didn't have the time to ride it this time (at least we couldn't convince the scardy cats to get on board anyway) We'll be sure they at least take pictures of us on the ride next time if they don't want to come along. P***s LOL.



DJ Emir is always small in stature but bigger than life when he's on the turntables! LOL Here Emir is Shown with the much taller New York New York Casino hostesses.

The Palazzo / Venitian hotel has a beatiful Venice Canal gondola section with a replica of Venice's famous canal system. Tons of fun if you have the time to hop aboard for an hour or so.

DJ Emir Mixtape fans were found all over Las Vegas, from Casino to Casino as we found many existing fans and  also created new fans out in Las Vegas. We had a few CDs left after the tour and handed the rest out at the airports which always makes us feel bad when we hear... "if someone you don't know tries to hand you something...." LOL

Coming back to freezing weather after a small stint down south was quite harsh, and during these cold months Denver's scene dies off a little on its snowy and ultra cold days, but I think we were all pretty much partied out and ready for a rest anyway... but so much for that plan, cause it's back to grinding away as usual.

See you all on the next leg of the tour if he invites us again, hope to catch you in your town soon. Vanessa V Blogger and Journalist Extraordinaire.

To book DJ Emir or other hot Deejays call 303 995-0875
or email him at mixshow @ DJ Emir . Com


-Vanessa V. The Great Music Blog